A healing service for one

Theoden: [upon being exorcised] Gandalf...

Gandalf: Breathe the free air again, my friend.

Theoden: [stands up from the throne] Dark have been my dreams of late.

[looks at his hands]

Gandalf: Your fingers would remember their old strength better... if they grasped your sword.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

“If the enemy can't have you on his side, he'll make sure you're no good to the other. But he doesn't dare attack you openly in case it might rouse you to take some meaningful action against him. So instead he pushes you by slow, calculated degrees toward the darkness. Working from the angle of truth, he gradually distorts it, bit by bit, until you believe nothing but lies. He uses slow poison to weaken your spirit until you are no longer a threat to his kingdom.”

“Such is the case with Wormtongue.”

Walking with Frodo by Sarah Arthur, p. 98

This past Sunday evening, Refuge held a Service of Healing and Wholeness at which only one man showed up to be prayed for. A week or so before I had created a Facebook event page and invited at least 40 of my local friends to the gathering. Last week I posted a press release in our local paper listing the time of the gathering and its purpose. I sent a notice via email to all the participating fellowships in our local ministerial asking my fellow pastors if they could share this with their congregation. And I exhorted the folks who were present at the weekly worship gathering that morning to come and be prayed for and still only one individual arrived a few minutes before the service began in search of prayer. Blame it on the extreme cold. Blame it on the Packer play-off game that this service was attempting to preempt. But whatever the reason, my appeal had clearly fallen on deaf ears.

Noah leading worship at our gathering

We waited another ten minutes or so for any late-comers to straggle in but when they didn't, I gave Noah, the young man from our fellowship whom I had asked to lead worship, the nod to begin. We were a congregation of five – Noah leading us in worship and invoking the presence of the Lord, Ben, the man from our fellowship who had come to receive healing prayer, Troy, one of Refuge's elders who was present to assist me, my wife, Linda, and myself. The sanctuary was essentially empty but the more Noah played, the more it seemed to me that the presence of the Lord filled the place.

About fifteen minutes later, Noah concluded his short worship set and Troy and I circled some chairs around Ben to minister to him. Linda felt inclined to simply pray in the back of the sanctuary while we prayed with Ben directly. At first, Ben was somewhat overcome with emotion. “This is so humbling,” he said. “A service just for me.” Ben has been attending Refuge off and on for a couple of years now. He's a mountain of a man but years of brick-laying have really done a number on his back. But even more painful are the spiritual and emotional wounds he carries from his past.

I anointed him with oil and asked the Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray for our brother and for the next hour or so, we listened and dialogued, prayed and affirmed, read the Word and spoke the truth where our mutual enemy has lied to him about who he is and how God feels about him. Last winter, while out in the Taylor County forest, I unwittingly drove my car up a snowmobile trail and got stuck there. Random snowmobilers could not get me unstuck, AAA refused to come as I was not on a paved road, and my attempts to reach some of the guys at Refuge were a bust. But Ben loaded up his 4-wheeler and drove two and a half hours in the dark to extricate me from my dilemma. I will forever be grateful for his demonstration of love for me. While we prayed for him I recall the mutual feelings of genuine brotherly affection for this man while at the same time being angered at our enemy's attempt to keep this man in bondage to lies and half-truths. Freedom is God's will for our lives and our birthright as younger brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. “Let my people go!” is still the demand of heaven to any power that seeks to enslave those who belong to God.

When it was over, Ben's face beamed with joy and the three of us shared manly bear-hugs with one another before we went back out into the cold. Later that night he sent me a text that read: “By God's grace my lower back feels better than it has in a while. Not as much pressure. Tonight was inspiring.” Personally, I attribute this to being released from some of the spiritual burdens and guilt he had been carrying for a long time. May the Lord bring release and healing to that part of his back that remains in need of restoration.

Mark 4-5 tell an interesting tale of healing that also centered on one guy. At the end of Mark 4, Jesus and the Twelve are in the boat heading across the Sea of Galilee. They are heading to the “Gentile part” of the lake and suddenly their boat is caught in a squall and nearly swamped. Awoken from deep slumber, Jesus stands up in the boat and in a loud voice tells the sea to “settle down.” Compliantly it does leaving the disciples just a little bit freaked out to be in such close proximity to the man who seems to have at his beck and call the wind and waves.

The beginning part of Mark 5, tells the rest of the story. They have made this foray into “enemy” territory to liberate a man held in bondage to a truckload of demons. He lives alone, a crazed individual, the local version of the “boogie man” whom nearby mothers threaten their children with if they are naughty. A power encounter happens right at the shore of the sea at which time that legion of demons is sent packing into a nearby herd of pigs rooting for grubs. Now filled with the unclean spirits, the pigs are driven mad and careen off the cliff and drown in the sea. When word reaches town of what happened, an angry crowd shows up demanding an accounting for the loss of the pigs. But when they see this formerly demented man “wearing decent clothes and making sense, no longer a walking madhouse of a man” (v. 15) their outrage turns to shock and awe. Who could work such magic to restore this man to sanity?

The townspeople demand that Jesus leave post-haste. They're mad about the pigs but they're even more afraid of the power wielded by the leader of this small band. Maybe if they had struck a different tone Jesus would have stayed for awhile and ministered to others afflicted in their community (and given how many places Jesus had ministered healing for long hours in the Galilee there certainly were others). But not welcome there he and the Twelve load the boat and prepare to return back home. The formerly demonized man begs to join their crew but knowing his ethnicity would compromise his mission, Jesus gives him a task to do:

“As Jesus was getting into the boat, the demon-delivered man begged to go along, but he wouldn’t let him. Jesus said, 'Go home to your own people. Tell them your story—what the Master did, how he had mercy on you.' The man went back and began to preach in the Ten Towns area about what Jesus had done for him. He was the talk of the town.” Mark 5:18-20, Msg

Sometime later, Jesus will return to the area (see Mark 7:31-37) and healings will happen there because some had heard his amazing story and were provoked to seek out the miracle worker for himself.

I'm not disappointed that only Ben showed up Sunday evening to be prayed for. We're a small fellowship, after all, in a town with a number of small fellowships. Everything we do, by comparison, say, to larger communities is small by comparison. But in the Kingdom of God small never means irrelevant or inconsequential. Clearly, it what the Lord had ordered that night. Troy and I wanted to pray for the sick and God sent us someone afflicted in body and spirit to whom we could minister love and grace to. That was worth missing the second half of the Packer-Redskin play-off game and a whole lot more. 

"You're Cured"

He carved her sorta like this...

At the end of October, my wife Linda had a hysterectomy. It was October 31 and before they wheeled her into surgery in her attempt at gallows humor she asked Dr. Bernard, “Well, Doc, are you gonna carve me like a pumpkin?” Everything went according to plan. For several years now she has been plagued by an irregular menstrual cycle accompanied by an unusual heavy flow. About a week later when we met with the surgeon for the post-operation appointment he informed us that the average uterus weighs 200 grams. According to the pathology report, her's had weighed 400. What's more, they had quit counting at 20 the fibrous tumors that they found within it. There was no poutyness on her part of saying good-bye to her child-bearing equipment (she did that shortly after Emma was born back in 1995). She was glad to be rid of it.

Since her three-year bout with depression back in the mid-90s, she has infrequently experienced what are usually referred to as “panic attacks” - these brief periods of time wherein your heart races, your head swims and leave you – depending upon the length of it – in need of a nap. For dealing with these odd occurrences her doctor prescribed Xanax to use as needed. On the morning she was to be discharged from the hospital following surgery, however, she had one of these. For an hour and a half her heart raced at 200 beats a minute all the while she was laying in bed. Essentially, she was running a race lying perfectly still. The good news is that they hooked her up to monitors and immediately informed us that whatever else was going on with her what she had just experienced was not a panic attack. So, an appointment was made to see a heart specialist at Luther Hospital in Eau Claire.

Do you follow?

Dr. Valverde is Peruvian (we asked) and is a prim, proper and soft-spoken man. He entered the examination room, shook our hands and asked Linda to describe what these “attacks” are like. He then got out his obligatory stethoscope, listened to her heart a few times and then said, “You have a condition called atrioventricular nodal reentry tachycardia (or AVNRT – Vanna, can I buy a vowel?)” As I understand the literature they put in our hands, the heart is an electrical machine and her's at the moment had a short in it. They would send a catheter into her heart and essentially “zap” that circuit so electricity could no longer run down that corridor and send her heart into arrhythmia. I courteously cleared my throat and asked “Um, no offense...I know you are an expert but can you really tell she has that condition just by listening to her heart for a few moments?” (I'm thinking he needs to hook her up to some machine at least). “Yes” was his curt answer. So an ablation was scheduled for early December.

This, too, went according to plan (apparently on the day Linda had her procedure, 4 other individuals had the same procedure done to them). Just the other day we sat in an examination room for her post-operative consultation with Dr. Valverde. Once again he came in and shook her hand and then mine and sat down and asked her how she felt. She informed him she was feeling good and that despite feeling her heart wanting to go into that irregular heart-beat on a few occasions since the ablation it was prevented. He thoughtfully nodded his head and said, “Well, you're cured.” 

"Well, you're cured."

We both are firm believers in healing prayer. We have never advocated anyone not going to a doctor for healing but we have come to encourage people to be prayed over as they begin something other than run-of-the-mill medical treatment. Linda herself had been prayed over on numerous occasions to be healed of both these conditions but in the absence of any improvement, medical intervention was sought. A month and a half later she is feeling wondrously better not just physically but spiritually and emotionally, too. It's just another reminder that each of us is an amazingly complex creation of not just matter and liquid but of spirit and soul, too. To treat one and ignore the other is to act like a materialist (i.e., “matter is everything”). To seek healing in the Name of Jesus Christ, however, is to trust that either via the prayer of faith or the tools that man has devised for the treatment of the ails of the human body – or both – is to show we have confidence in God's love and abiding presence with us.

She feels sorta like this these days

So, she's better. Lots better. She's lighter (well, physically maybe only 400 grams lighter) but the weight of the yoke of sickness has been lifted from her. Dr. Valverde and Dr. Bernard have done their wonders but the healing virtue of Jesus has lifted her spirits and continues to make her whole.

Right after Dr. Valverde announced quietly, “You're cured” he then said, “Let's see the groin” (it is where he had inserted the catheter after all). Linda looked at me and I smiled. Only in a hospital would a man say to another man's wife “Let's see the groin” in front of her husband as if he was asking for the time of day. If I had been faster on my feet, I would have said: “It's okay, Doc. I got this. I'm an expert at conducting that kind of exam on her.” Maybe next time...well, let's trust there is no next time.

I want to see, too.

"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus in Jericho (as found in Matthew 20:32)

It's just a brief vignette in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In between more teaching on the "upside-down"-ness of the kingdom of God and the Triumphal Entry is this brief little episode of healing, yet another in the storied life of the rabbi from Galilee. It is a story of desperateness and what despair can cause you to do. Two men from Jericho - one who may have been the Bartimaeus in Mark's gospel - both of whom are blind, hear that Jesus is passing by and though the moment be inopportune, these guys seize the day. The healer of great renown is pasing by and this is their moment. So with a 'now or never' kind of swagger, they raise a cry: "Master, have mercy on us! Mercy, Son of David!" (Matthew 20:30, Msg)

They must have been loud - loud enough to disrupt an otherwise uneventful walk out of Jericho as Jesus and his following began the trek to Jerusalem. Why else would they have been shushed by the rest of the lookers-on? But these guys won't be denied and cry out all the louder. In a day where there were no social safety nets like SSI or HUD or food stamps, after years of living in degradation and shame, what, after all, did they have to lose? Like it or not, they were going to make their need known and if the Son of David refused to stop and pay them a small kindness, then it wouldn't be because he had not heard their plea for help. Imagine their joy when Jesus stops what he's doing and calls to them, "What do you want me to do for you?"

There have been several times over the past few years I've tried to put myself in their place and imagine how I would answer if the Lord of all the earth would ask me the very same thing. Would I revert to my native Lutheranism and go religious - you know, "Oh, Lord, I know you're busy and my needs really aren't worth quibbling over..." Or would I pontificate questions that come to me easily while I sit in my comfortable chair typing these words that you read now. Things like, "I want to be free from my debt I'm under" or "I want whatever it is I need to become a successful writer" or "I want the discipline I seem to lack so that I eat better"? I wonder how he would respond to these rather bland requests. Would he smile and pat me on the shoulder and simply say, 'God bless you"? Or what?

Their needs were far more visceral and immediate: "Lord, we want our sight. A blind person is a nothing and worse than a nothing to his family - he's a burden and life is nothing but trouble. You can't work or contribute meaningfully to society. We want to see and have a chance at life." There was no apologizing for asking a decidedly self-centered request. They ask as children would ask (with tears in their eyes, no doubt): "WE WNAT TO SEE!" "Deeply moved, Jesus touched their eyes. They had their sight back that very instant and joined the procession" (Msg).

On Monday morning, I began thinking of the Service of Healing and Wholeness which will be held tonight in our sanctuary. We have held a monthly gathering dedicated to healing for over five years now. They have usually been gatherings attended by only a few if you don't include the ministry team most of whom are present because they want to be and also because they know it is expected of them. And God has been present, people have been blesed and every once in a while, something a little out of the ordinary occurs. But for the most part they are fairly non-events as healings services in a Pentecostal tradition go. Last month, no one came (other than the ministry team). I place a small notice in our local paper. I announce it from the pulpit. So what does it mean when you host a Service of Healing and no one comes? Certaily, we are not in the Millenial yet. There are still sick among us - at Refuge and in our community - but for whatever reason sick people do not come to these gatherings as a rule. Maybe they prefer going to a doctor instead. Maybe there's just that much unbelief in our hearts. And when a few of my ministry team members hint that maybe we need to give "this thing" a rest, while I understand where they're coming from my discouragement increases nonetheless.


Over the last five years I have read perhaps two dozen books on healing from those who minister healing in many different traditions of the Church - Catholic (Francis MacNutt), Anglican (Roy Lawrence), "Third-Wavers" (John Wimber, Charles Kraft), Episcopal (Dennis Bennett), Presbyterian (Anges Sanford), and others - and every time I read my heart is stirred and my faith elevated. I've attended conferences on healing and gone through training for the same. And every time my heart says to all of it - "YES, YES, YES!" Which leads me back to these two guys sitting aside the road in Jericho. I feel in my spirit somewhat like them. I'm a begger wanting to see - to see the works of the kingdom manifested in my community. I know exactly how I would answer if the Lord were to ask me the same question this morning he asked them: "I WANT TO SEE! I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT HEALING ANYMORE OR CITE EXAMPLES OF HOW THE POWER OF GOD FLOWED THROUGH OTHERS TO BRING HEALING. I WANT TO SEE THE POWER OF GOD MANIFESTED IN OUR MIDST. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ME - USE SOMEBODY ELSE. STILL, I'D LIKE TO DO THE STUFF. FOR PETE'S SAKE, I WANT TO SEE YOUR KINGDOM COME!!!"

I don't think I can quit "this thing." To quit praying for the sick is to succumb to the notion that the medical establishment has all the answers and the church should just stick to giving out messages of the peace and reward in the kingdom to come. So, I'm sitting beside the road this morning with my bowl out hoping that the Man from Nazareth will walk by me tonight and hear my plea and touch my eyes that I, too, may see the power of his Kingdom in action. If he comes, I'm not going to be shushed by anyone who tells me not to make a big deal about it. I'm going to raise a cheer and follow the procession wherever it goes.