Date: 19 March 2023 | Pre­a­cher:
Series: | Bible text: Exodus 12; Hebrews 11:13
Hint: This ser­mon has been machi­ne trans­la­ted. Plea­se note that we can­not accept any respon­si­bi­li­ty for the accu­ra­cy of the content.

Through the simp­le pray­er of Moses «Oh God, heal them«Miri­am was hea­led of lepro­sy. It is also true today that God’s holi­ne­ss heals. Ever sin­ce man first chal­len­ged God in the Gar­den of Eden, sick­ness has been part of our exis­tence on earth. When we pray for heal­ing, we do so with the gre­at cer­tain­ty that God always heals – some­ti­mes in the now, one hundred per­cent in the tomorrow.


After the encoun­ters with the holy God, Moses» face sho­ne so stron­gly that he cover­ed it with a cloth. He was sanc­ti­fied by the holi­ne­ss of God. One day, a fami­ly quar­rel aro­se with sis­ter Miri­am, who was a pro­phe­tess, and brot­her Aaron, who was a priest. The two siblings spo­ke dis­pa­ra­gin­gly about Moses» wife becau­se of her brown skin colour. Pre­su­ma­b­ly, howe­ver, it was not so much about racial issues, but about Moses» spe­cial pro­phe­tic posi­ti­on. «They asked, «Has the LORD real­ly spo­ken only through Moses? Has he not also done it through us?» And the LORD heard it» (Gene­sis 12:2 NLB). Envy, jea­lou­sy and com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness are the par­ents of this ques­ti­on. Moses bears this humi­lia­ti­on sil­ent­ly: «Moses was very hum­ble, the­re was no one on earth more hum­ble than him»(V.3 NLB). So he lea­ves the mat­ter in the hands of the Lord.

Illness in a fallen world

The result of this attempt­ed coup was devas­ta­ting for Miri­am. After a short dia­lo­gue in which the Lord con­firm­ed Moses» spe­cial posi­ti­on, she beca­me white as snow with lepro­sy. Sin­ce the first ques­tio­ning of God by man in the Gar­den of Eden, sick­ness has been part of our exis­tence on earth. Sin is the cau­se of sick­ness. Sin means put­ting one’s trust in some­thing other than God.

Recent­ly I came across two tra­gic sto­ries. In the maga­zi­ne Auf­At­men 1/2023, Mir­jam, a mother of three school­child­ren, descri­bes how her hus­band Sebas­ti­an fell ill with can­cer and died at the age of 42. Almost at the same time, I read about a fami­ly of six in the Eas­ter edi­ti­on of the news­pa­per «Quar­ter Hour for Faith». The father named Eli­as, a secon­da­ry school tea­cher, died of a pul­mo­na­ry embo­lism on 1 Decem­ber 2021, aged just 41. Sebas­ti­an and Eli­as – two fami­ly fathers in their prime – fall ill and die. That is the sad rea­li­ty in a fal­len world. And what does God do? Nothing?

At one point Jesus asks if the eigh­te­en men kil­led by a fal­ling tower were the grea­test sin­ners (Luke 13:4). «No. I tell you again: if you do not rep­ent and turn back on your way, you will peri­sh just the same.»(Luke 13:5 NLB). In Miriam’s case, fate struck direct­ly and imme­dia­te­ly after she missed her tar­get. But that is not the case in most cases. Ill­ness and sin­ful­ness in a human being do not run par­al­lel. Nevert­hel­ess, ill­nesses belong to the cate­go­ry «con­se­quence of the Fall».

Healing in a fallen world

To be holy means to be who­le, com­ple­te and who­le. The holy God heals! It was the same with Mir­jam. «And Moses cried unto the LORD, O God, heal them.»(Exodus 12:13 LUT). The heal­ing did not hap­pen imme­dia­te­ly. But after seven days Miri­am was allo­wed to return to the camp of the Israe­li­tes in good health. God’s self-image is: «[…] I am the LORD, your Phy­si­ci­an» (Exodus 15:26 LUT).

Does God always heal? The sto­ries of Sebas­ti­an and Eli­jah and a thousand other expe­ri­en­ces show that God does not always heal. If Jesus had assu­med that heal­ing was always available, he would not have prai­sed his fol­lo­wers in the Last Judgment: «I was sick, and you nur­sed me» (Matthew 25:36 NLB), but: «I was sick and you hea­led me.» And if God always hea­led, no one would die any more. Age­ing is a form of phy­si­cal decay. Cell divi­si­on slows down, the skin beco­mes flab­bier, the hair on the head falls out, eye­sight decrea­ses. The who­le thing leads inex­orab­ly to death. Thus Paul sta­tes: «For we know that all of crea­ti­on gro­ans with us until this moment, as under the pain of child­birth»(Romans 8:22 NLB). The qua­li­ty of a church is not first shown by how powerful­ly it heals, but how lovin­g­ly it accom­pa­nies sick people.

I am con­vin­ced that imme­dia­te heal­ing is by no means always effec­ti­ve. Some­ti­mes the holy God also wants to set us right. The­re are, in fact, also dise­a­ses that we our­sel­ves cau­se. Bit­ter­ness in the heart, for exam­p­le, can lead to psy­cho­lo­gi­cal or even phy­si­cal com­plaints. Recent­ly the­re was a pro­gram­me on Swiss tele­vi­si­on about nut­ri­ti­on. As an exam­p­le, they show­ed a for­mer ice hockey play­er who only beca­me healt­hy by chan­ging his diet. Others have joint or back pro­blems becau­se they don’t exer­cise enough. In such cases, a spon­ta­neous cure would be an inad­mis­si­ble short­cut that does not help to sus­tain­ab­ly impro­ve the qua­li­ty of life. We should defi­ni­te­ly ask our­sel­ves the ques­ti­on of our own respon­si­bi­li­ty in the case of an ill­ness.

And yet it is true: The holy God sanc­ti­fies and heals! In Moses» time, leprous peo­p­le had to live out­side the camp becau­se the dan­ger of spre­a­ding the dise­a­se was too gre­at. Jesus, howe­ver, defied this con­ven­ti­on and hea­led leprous peo­p­le by tou­ch­ing them. The holy is stron­ger than impu­ri­ty. The­r­e­fo­re, it is about con­nec­ting sick peo­p­le with the holi­ne­ss of God. I am inspi­red by the simp­le pray­er of Moses: «Oh, God, heal them!» No ten-point pro­gram­me, no magic for­mu­la, just a simp­le, con­vin­ced invo­ca­ti­on of the Lord. It is the pray­er of a man who regu­lar­ly expo­sed hims­elf to God’s holi­ne­ss. Out of this being sanc­ti­fied grew his humi­li­ty and aut­ho­ri­ty. The­se are basic requi­re­ments for a heal­ing ministry.

We live in the «alre­a­dy now» and «not yet» with regard to the King­dom of God. We can alre­a­dy expe­ri­ence the power of God’s new world in a sym­bo­lic way, and yet we are not yet expe­ri­en­cing God’s king­dom in its com­ple­ti­on. Heal­ing of the sick is a har­bin­ger of the new world, which we are alre­a­dy expe­ri­en­cing as signs, but unfort­u­na­te­ly not yet across the board. We expect that healings will also take place in our midst. We want to crea­te space for this and pro­mo­te pray­er for the heal­ing of the sick.

Healing in a new world

Sebas­ti­an dies at home, in Mirjam’s arms. One of the sons later says: «We always pray­ed that the can­cer would be bea­ten. Now the can­cer is dead and Dad is ali­ve.» Eli­as» room­ma­te wri­tes: «Our pray­ers for heal­ing were ans­we­red, albeit in dif­fe­rent ways. Eli­jah will never have to suf­fer again.» The wife of the decea­sed Eli­jah says: «We do not stop at Good Fri­day. We go over to Eas­ter. That was always very com­fort­ing.»

Is this cheap con­so­la­ti­on for the here­af­ter? Sim­ply an expres­si­on of dis­ap­point­ment and weak con­so­la­ti­on that God did not heal? For me, the most important sen­tence in the Bible on the sub­ject of heal­ing the sick is: «All the­se peo­p­le belie­ved until they died wit­hout having recei­ved what God had pro­mi­sed them. But they saw what was pro­mi­sed to them from afar and loo­ked for­ward to it, for they had reco­g­nis­ed and testi­fied that they were only guests and stran­gers here on earth» (Hebrews 11:13 NLB). When we pray for the sick, we do so with gre­at con­vic­tion that God’s holi­ne­ss heals. The­r­e­fo­re, we pray with Moses wit­hout ifs and buts: «Oh God, heal!«In pray­er and faith we bring sick peo­p­le into cont­act with God’s holi­ne­ss. In doing so, we focus not only on tem­po­ral life but also on eter­nal life. One of the sons of Eli­jah says: «The loss is gre­at. At first I screa­med at God: Why are you doing this? Then peace came. The sad­ness is the­re, but not hope­l­ess­ness.» Does God always heal? Yes, he does, but not always in the tem­po­ral life. From God’s per­spec­ti­ve, our sal­va­ti­on is abo­ve heal­ing. That is why Wil­helm Busch once said: «It is bet­ter to belong to Jesus para­ly­sed and to be a child of God than to jump into hell with two healt­hy legs!»

If you are not hea­led despi­te pray­er for the sick, it is not a sign that God has for­got­ten you or does not love you. The deep­ly hurt and aban­do­ned Hagar pray­ed: «You are a God who sees me»(Gene­sis 16:13 LUT). God sees your need, He hears your cry and designs a res­cue plan that will one day be imple­men­ted. We want to be a church that not only prays for the sick, but also accom­pa­nies them. «I was sick, and you nur­sed me»(Matthew 25:36 NLB). Ask God if He wants to tell you some­thing through the ill­ness. Should you chan­ge some­thing in your life? Recon­ci­le with someone? Work through your life sto­ry? But it is important to main­tain a holy com­po­sure in this ques­tio­ning pro­cess. When God wants to tell you some­thing, He does it in a way that you under­stand. But if in your suf­fe­ring you hear not­hing, let pray­er be made for you again and wor­ship the Lord in rever­ence. It is part of the mys­te­rious holi­ne­ss of God that we do not under­stand ever­y­thing. And espe­ci­al­ly dif­fi­cult times are invi­ta­ti­ons into God’s glory.

My mother recent­ly had to have sur­gery on her hand. When I asked her how she had fared, she said: «I pray­ed so hard that it would­n’t need sur­gery. But then she repor­ted full of joy that she felt very safe and sup­port­ed during the ope­ra­ti­on. The invol­vement of a doc­tor and the expec­ta­ti­on of heal­ing by God is not a con­tra­dic­tion. The ques­ti­on is rather in what we place our trust. About King Asa it says: «In the 39th year of his reign, Asa was aff­lic­ted with a foot ailm­ent. But even in this ter­ri­ble ill­ness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from his doc­tors.» (2 Chro­nic­les 16:12 NLB). He trus­ted the doc­tors more than the Lord and that sea­led his downfall.

 

God’s holi­ne­ss always heals – some­ti­mes in the now, one hundred per­cent in the tomor­row! Out of this con­vic­tion we want to offer the pray­er for the sick dili­gent­ly in see­tal chi­le. We expect heal­ing – we lea­ve the timing to God. The ves­sel of the evening ser­vice is made for this. We want to do this ser­vice like Moses: With the radi­ance of God’s glo­ry on our face, hum­bly, in all sim­pli­ci­ty and out of full con­vic­tion of faith.

 

Possible questions for the small group 

Bible text rea­ding: Deu­te­ro­no­my 12 and Hebrews 11:13

  1. Miri­am was hea­led of lepro­sy (Gene­sis 12). What was the cau­se of the dise­a­se? What was her con­tri­bu­ti­on to the heal­ing? What was Moses» contribution?
  2. How would you descri­be the con­nec­tion bet­ween sin and illness?
  3. What is the poten­ti­al of ill­ness? What could be the reason when heal­ing does not hap­pen despi­te prayer?
  4. As an affec­ted per­son, how could you deal with the fact that the dise­a­se does not go away despi­te pray­er? How should non-affec­ted peo­p­le deal with affec­ted people?
  5. Read Hebrews 11:13, what impact does this ver­se have on our pray­ers for healing?