ST. JOHN’S DUMFRIES
HEALING ADDRESS 5
In my first address on the Church’s Healing Ministry in 2007 I left with you three questions, one of which was: “Is there any distinction between healing and curing?” In a later address I attempted to provide some further thinking on this question (which can still be found on the St John’s website*). In a nutshell, I suggested that healing and curing could be one and the same, but were not necessarily so – and that healing or wholeness was something deeper and more important than the mere curing of outward symptoms.Today I want to touch on the interlinked question: “Why are some people obviously healed or cured, while others don’t seem to be?”
Personally, I believe that wherever Christ’s healing touch is given some measure of wholeness or healing is always imparted – irrespective of whether or not there appears to be a cure. Furthermore, I also believe that all healing has a God-given purpose.
On this matter of purpose, I would particularly like briefly to draw your attention to probably the most outstanding healing in the last century – 1912 to be exact. Then, on Sunday February 18th, a 22 year old young woman called Dorothy Kerin, who had been bed-bound for many years, suffering from multiple serious illnesses, was believed to be dying. But following her experience of a vision in which she was instructed to get up and walk, she did just that – to the utter astonishment of the supporters round her anticipated deathbed! Extensive medical examination subsequently proved that her health was entirely restored. And that was the beginning of a truly remarkable ministry which she began at Ealing in London. Then after the war she moved to Speldhurst in Kent before buying Burrswood in 1948, on the Kent/Sussex border. The healing ministry she began continues at what is now called Burrswood Christian Hospital to this day, in which the healing skills of both medicine and the church are totally interlocked. I personally have had the privilege of being present as an observer of a morning staff meeting there, at which both the physical and spiritual aspects of patients’ treatment were treated on an equal footing. We might say that Dorothy Kerin’s healing was an outstanding case in which purpose is transparently obvious!
But now I move on to the harder question. Why is it that some people are apparently not healed? One can only honestly say that we don’t know for certain – but however, Jesus himself did give us certain pointers, of which I will mention a few:
- The first of these occurs in John 5.6, when Jesus asked the man by the Pool of Bethesda “Do you really want to be healed?” Time was when I considered that to be a pretty silly question: but with experience I have learned better! In some cases, sickness or infirmity can itself become a way of life, so that the demands of living a normal healthy life may seem to be too great to be borne. Obviously this can constitute a real barrier to healing.
- Sin: (which again Jesus says can constitute a barrier to wholeness and healing). Sin may be that which we have personally committed, and for which we have not asked forgiveness. But equally, it can also be sin against us [real or perceived] which we have been unwilling to forgive. Remember Jesus taught us to pray – “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Failure to forgive on our part can be very destructive of our own wholeness and health.
- Related to the last, bad relationships within the community – and most especially within the family – can also impair the possibility of healing, causing blockage within the body’s immune system and its natural healing capacity. There are four areas of necessary right relationships: First: with God, Second: with our neighbour, Third: with our environment – yes, and Fourth: also with ourselves. (And here remember Jesus instruction that we should “love our neighbour as ourselves” – clearly implying that a right degree of love of self is not so much a self-indulgence, as an actual obligation!)
- Lastly, there is the point that Jesus so often made, when he said “Your faith has made you whole….” By that he was not speaking of “faith-healing” as popularly misunderstood. By faith is meant deep trust: that doesn’t simply mean merely believing intellectually in our minds that God exists, and that he sent his Son to us a couple of millennia ago, but rather it refers to our readiness to trust him for the rest of our lives. It refers to total commitment – not altogether unlike marriage. Could it be that we are sometimes tempted merely to flirt with Christianity rather than take the ultimate plunge of total life commitment?
And so I will finish with some words that Dorothy Kerin herself regularly used at all healing services (which are all the more remarkable because she herself underwent an instant healing): “There is no magic about the healing of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It does not necessarily come immediately, sometimes it does not come at all in the way we hope. Therefore we must come with one prayer in our hearts and minds, and that is that God’s will may be done in us and for us. And he asks that we come in faith…….”
J. Paul Burbridge