Mark 1:34-39
…. he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him.
When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
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Once upon a time there was a western miniseries with six two-hour episodes entitled Into the West produced by Steven Spielberg. It was aired in Canada on the CBC network in 2006. It follows a family, called Wheeler, as they moved from the Eastern coast to San Francisco area through a couple of generations.
They occasionally met and married native Americans as well. A tribe of the Sioux even adopted one of them. At that tribe according to the story of the series, there was a very sick woman, probably a Lakota, and the Medicine Man was not able to heal her. After a couple of days he gave up his attempts declaring that it was the woman’s fault, because her missing or to little faith.
He left the tepee. His teenage assistant somehow felt that despite the declaration of his master, he, the student, could heal the women. So, the student went back, and took away the woman’s sickness. On the screen it happened by visible moves of the hand, as he was dragging the sickness out of the woman, who would have died otherwise, and was in a great pain.
The woman was saved. However when the young man left the tepee, he became temporarily sick, began to vomit, as a person who lost a lot of energy during the healing process.
The event could have been a great embarrassment for the teacher, withal his medical opinion was not wrong. In order to heal or to be healed, you need faith.
You can imagine a simple chemical battery. In general, in it there is a conducive liquid, the electrolyte. Two different metal pieces, called anode and cathode, a negative and a positive electrodes are placed in to the usually acidic electrolyte, it can be even lemon juice or vinegar, and the electrons from one piece of metal to the other piece of appropriate metal begin to flow, and by that an electric current is established, which can light a light bulb, or operate a machine etc. The energy is created not from the thin air, but released from the storing material to make it useful.
The healing is a little bit similar.
The electrolyte is faith. Both the healer and the suffering person must have electrolyte, an energy transmitting field in order that the healing connection may stand a chance to be established. The healer must be filled with energy so the direction of the energy flow is aimed to the receiver.
When they both have the faith as a transmitter, the healing connection might be established by even a single touch of the hand, and the flow of energy can start to speed toward the person whose energy level is low, or even fainting away. This exactly happened to the woman who suffered from internal bleeding. According to the Gospel of Luke chapter 8 “As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
Just as Jesus said at the end of the same Gospel of Mark, chapter 16, regarding his faithful followers that “they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
Just as it happened to the mother-in-law of Simon Peter, according to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 1 that “ As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.” When Jesus took her by her hand, the energy started to flow toward the receiver, and she was healed on the spot. She became better not a week later, or a month later or a year later, but immediately.
It is logical too, because according to even science, going by the famous, though simplified equation of Albert Einstein, all material in the universe in general and the material in our body in particular is just a surface phenomenon of the energy behind everything which was created. It is pivotal to under-stand that this omnipresent energy also maintains us as people, body and soul and spirit. If the energy-misbalance in our soul and in our body is repaired,then the sickness must disappear instantly.
The same thing happens when someone light a candle in the darkness, and the darkness, sometimes only in spots tough, but ceases to exist until the light lasts.
Some people question the level of the profound goodness in God, even blaming God for all of their problems in particular, and for all of the sufferings of the humanity in its global spread. Some even say, look at Jesus, he assumably had the power to heal everybody, but he did not heal everybody. He assumably had the power to resurrect everybody but he did not resurrect everybody, not even the good ones, let alone the wicked ones.
Where is the mercy and where is the love of God?
They claim that Jesus could have gotten up early every day, as the text says that “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”, but instead of multiplying his prayers he should have been busy all the time to heal people in leper camps, ancient hospitals, quarantines, etc.
Nonetheless, the Gospel says, “When they found him (in the desert alone), they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the Gospel there also; for that is what I came out to do." (To proclaim the Gospel.)
Crowds followed him from town to town, even into the desert. A few wanted to hear the Gospel, most of them wanted to be healed from their afflictions, to be freed from their sicknesses.
However, it does not work that way.
To connect to Jesus, we need faith. To be healed by him we need faith.
Just as Jesus said to the woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, that “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
When she touched the edge of his cloak, she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” That is faith.
God certainly has the ultimate and almighty power to heal anybody even against one’s will, or in the case of the complete lack of faith. However, although God has the power to make it happen, it is very unlikely that he has the will to do that.
Whenever Jesus healed people they begged him to do that, and it never happened without the faith of the sick people, as it is also written in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, that when he visited his hometown, Nazareth, he had to bitterly rebuke them that ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.’ And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.”
May the almighty God, the Father of the Creation and all creatures in the universe grant us faith in order to be healed, in order to heal, to grow in loving kindness every day, to acquire wisdom and spiritual insight, to have patience to endure sufferings and affliction, to have strength to serve others, to have courage in seeking for justice, to have a heart to yield to compassion and show mercy to all. May the Lord Bless us in our all godly endeavors, as we bless his name, in this world and in the world to come, by the Holy Spirit, now and always,
Amen.
