We continue on with our speculative questions of “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Nice People?” You’ve asked, I’ve asked, convinced of our virtue. Scripture portions to be heard this upcoming weekend claim God’s desire of Perfection: God has given us Wholeness in Creation, but human nature has been seen in the way we’ve deviated from accepting this exalted state. These occasions are rich in naming Wholeness as a given.
Many of us do not recognize the WISDOM of SOLOMON AS “real” scripture, because it’s a part of the Apocryphal writings of the Old Testament. Yet here it is, 1:13-15, 2:23-24. The author–probably a Greek-speaking Jew from Egypt–is lifting up the permanence between God and humanity as opposed to the escapism of the transient worshiper. (“Eat, drink, and be merry: gather rosebuds while you still can.”) The book insists that life didn’t come as a matter of chance, and that death isn’t the last word. “…God did not make death, and [God] does not delight in the death of the living.” If we take a long view of human life, then the surrounding injustice becomes more terrible, more personal. More than being saved from death, we are enriched by claiming our immortality.
St. Paul, or someone on his team, is speaking in II CORINTHIANS 8:7-15 about money…or is he? We’ve understood that these verses refer to the charitable gifts by the Churches to aid the work in Jerusalem; yet between the lines is a concern for the unity of the People of Christ, an acknowledgment that we’re all in the same boat. The Corinthian’s “…deepest need is to share their abundance with brothers and sisters who are less materially blessed.” (John T. McFadden, FEASTING on the WORD, B 3:186) What does this have to do with healing? Everything, for it is affirmation that the entire body is connected by Divine design.
MARK 5:25-34 tells about Jesus’ encounter with a seriously hemmorhaging woman–she had spent all her money for the last twelve years trying to get this to stop, and was now desperate. She may have been a Gentile, and an unclean woman–but she touched Jesus’ cloak and the bleeding ceased! Fearing rebuke, she confessed everything; but Jesus spoke to her of faith in the God of Health. She understood that bodily functions were not an affliction, but that as a daughter of God she had the right to perfection! Do we still believe even when physical healing is slow? Do we still recognize that God’s Plan includes our prayers?
Over the years, I’ve offered many services of Sacramental Healing. In all of these, there were many who were disappointed that crutches were not immediately discarded, or that skin rashes didn’t immediately disappear. Yet as one who was personally cured of a mysterious swelling of the pancreas, I can affirm that Wholeness/Healing is a process, and that Divine Intervention is really a proclamation of our own created perfection. Genesis 1:31 tells us that “God saw everything that {God} had made, and behold, it was very good.”
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
Please join us every Tuesday to unpack the scriptural texts to be heard on the upcoming weekend; and please share this with a friend! horacebrownking.com
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