It’s been a while since I’ve written. Today I had the privilege of preaching on Isaiah 35 – a wonderful poem about the hope of restoration. I share an amended version (in the sermon I invited people forward for prayer for healing, so I have changed some of it to make sense online), in the hope that through it God may minister to you, too:
“Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
…
But only the redeemed will walk there,
and those the LORD has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
A few parts of the beautiful poem from Isaiah 35, speaking of the promise of restoration for individuals, creation and community, a wonderful vision which the Christian faith claims has become reality in the person of Jesus Christ.
Christianity makes that claim because Jesus himself made that claim. In our gospel reading John the Baptist is in prison. Unable to see Jesus’ ministry for himself but hearing of Jesus acting in a very different way to the Messiah he had imagined, he sends his disciples to ask Jesus “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus’ response is to point to the ways in which He has fulfilled Scripture through his ministry, particularly the signs and miracles, and the proclaiming of the good news to the poor.
In the gospels, through Jesus:
- People who were blind have received their sight (Matt 9; Mk 8; 10; Lk 18; Jn 9)
- The paralysed walked (The centurion’s servant – Matt 8 & Matt 3 & 9; Mk 2; Lk 5)
- Those with leprosy were healed (Matt 8; Mk 1; Lk 5)
- The deaf could hear (Mk 7). and
- The dead were raised to life. (Lazarus (Jn 11), Jairus’ daughter (Matt 9; Mk 5; Lk 8), the widow’s son)
In his ministry, Jesus was fulfilling the promises that can be seen in Isaiah 35 and many other places in the Jewish Scriptures, to bring restoration to individuals, to community and to the land. John could be certain that Jesus is the Messiah, because of what he saw and heard.
This restoration did not end with Jesus on the cross, for He rose again, and is alive. And this restoration did not end when He ascended to heaven, because He sent us the gift of His Holy Spirit. We see this in the book of Acts, we see this throughout church history, and we see it today.
When we suffer illness, particularly undiagnosed, chronic or terminal illnesses and disabilities, it can be really hard to hold onto this promise. I know that as much as anyone else. For some reason, when we pray for healing, we don’t always see the result that we wanted. Sometimes we try to explain this, and give an answer for why these difficult things happen. I’m not going to try to do that, because having been there, and often still finding myself there, I’m not sure it always helps!
What is clear, though, is that God’s people have often found themselves both seeing God at work in the situations and circumstances around them, and also feeling like there is still something to come, a sense that God’s promises are not yet fully realised. Isaiah 35 is written for the people of Judah, who are experiencing exile, oppression and suffering. The promise was not a new one, but many had ceased to hope for it, and Isaiah addresses their fear directly in verses 3 and 4, reminding them of the LORD, the great I AM who had made Himself known to them in Moses, reminding them that the same God who rescued their ancestors from Egypt was still present and active, for them, His people. To trust in the goodness and faithfulness of God when our usual reference points for goodness seem to have disappeared can seem impossible, but it is what ordinary people did throughout the Bible. The season of Advent is about celebrating what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and what He is doing in our midst now through His Holy Spirit, whilst also waiting with excitement and anticipation for Jesus’ return and the completion of the restoration of the kingdom of God.
My personal story is also one of the “now” and the “not yet”, of having asked for healing and not received, and, of knowing with certainty through personal experience, that God definitely does heal today, in truly miraculous ways, as well as through doctors and medical professionals.
This promise is not some distant promise of the future, nor is it a hope unique to the time when Jesus walked amongst the people of Judea.
11 years ago, I went to Soul Survivor with my youth group, shortly after taking my GCSEs. For a few years before, my health had been gradually deteriorating, and then had drastically got worse. At first I was just unable to get up off the floor under my own steam, but we realised something was seriously wrong when I became unable to put my feet flat on the floor, my left foot first and then my right. I was unable to stand with my eyes closed, then unable to walk unaided, unable to hold a pen and unable to write. By the summer, I needed a wheelchair, and struggled to sit upright without support. The doctors didn’t know what was wrong, apart from that it was ‘something neurological’, and didn’t have any idea how to start treating it.
On the second night, the speaker spoke of how God had done “all these amazing healings, all over the world”, and I cried. I cried tears of anger and frustration, despair and jealousy. “If God has done all that, why hasn’t he done it for me?!” People were invited forward to receive prayer for healing, and I resolutely stayed where I was. I was too angry and worn out by repeated prayers to go forward again. But I did concede to allow a friend to get our youth leaders. I knew God *could* heal me, but to be honest, I didn’t think God would. At some point, I decided that I needed to be stood up, to know whether God had done anything, so I asked those praying for me to help me stand. One of my youth leaders specifically prayed that my feet would become flat on the floor. Instantaneously, it felt like I had a stones in my shoes, and I took them off. My feet were flat on the floor, and I immediately ran to the front of the tent, and wrote in perfect handwriting what God had done for me.
Since that day, my health and mobility has been up and down – I was born with clubbed feet and whilst the operation as a baby was as successful as possible, I do still have some difficulty – my story is a story of both the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’ of the promised restoration of the kingdom of God.
But I am absolutely convinced that today we should pray for healing, and for specific healing, for physical and emotional healing.
God can and does heal gradually, through doctors and medicine, but He also heals through miracles, and when we don’t come to Jesus and ask for a miracle, we are missing out on a significant part of the good news of restoration and hope that Jesus brings.
God’s healing is for the whole of us, body, mind and spirit, but there are times when we need healing for something specific. Or, like when my youth leader prayed for my feet, a very specific prayer can help us to notice how God is at work, and as we notice where God is at work, in our lives and in others, our faith and expectation that God will do something increases. A biblical example of this is when Jesus prayed for a man who was born blind. Having prayed for him once, he asks the man “what can you see?” and the man describes how he sees shapes moving around, but he can’t make out what they are, so Jesus prays for him again, and then he can see fully and clearly.
So today, you are invited to pray for healing. I encourage you, if you can, to think of a specific thing that you aren’t able to do at the moment, but that if you could, you would know that God is doing something in you.
You may be afraid to ask for prayer for healing, and feel like it is too much of a risk, that you have asked so many times before, and you can’t bear to be hurt again. I acknowledge right here and now, the intense pain that repeatedly asking for, and seemingly not receiving healing, can cause. It is not a lack of faith on your part that means that you haven’t been healed – I break that lie that is hanging over you, and I share with you what I found faith ‘the size of a mustard seed’ to look like 11 years ago: “I suppose, if God is God, he could, in theory, heal me”. Nothing more than that. Only you can make the decision to ask for and receive prayer for healing, and decide whether you are willing to risk it again. I know from painful personal experience, that at times it can feel like risking your whole faith for the sake of being rid of a bit of pain. There will be no requirement or compulsion, but if you choose to take that risk, seek someone who you can trust to pray with you, and to commit to journeying with you.
You may be sitting here today and feel like I did back at Soul Survivor – angry and frustrated and feeling like God wouldn’t want to heal you. I hear you, and I understand. The suggestion that God wouldn’t want to heal you is a lie, and I speak the truth over you now, that God loves you, you are precious in His sight, and He longs to heal you and minister to you.
I encourage you, wherever you feel you are at, to trust in who God is and in His goodness, shown to each and every one of us in the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.
repairerofwalls 