Jehovan Rophe

Text: 1 Kings 17:17-24

Focus: Healing

Function: To prepare for anointing service

Intro: I am grateful for Pentecost and what it means to us to have the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, living inside of us.

Today, the lectionary texts focus on healing and as I see it, healing is what we need.

Another text from today comes from Psalms 30, let me read verses 2, and then my favorite 2 verses from that Psalm, vs 11-12

From Psalms 30:

²O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.

¹¹You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,

¹²so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

The caption above the passage in the New Revised Standard Version, a caption that was added by the translators, says that it is a prayer of thanksgiving for recovery from a serious illness.

And I think, that every time I have seen an answer to prayer that appeared to be some sort of divine intervention, most often, an hard heart is changed (often mine), or an incredible coincidence happens, and yes, I have even seen what appears to be physical and supernatural interventions that seem to defy God’s laws of nature.

And when that happens, many times, my heart has broken out into the song of these last two verses -God has turned my mourning into dancing.

My dad, a man of whom some have said had a gift of healing, always reminded me that the laws of Nature are God’s laws and God will not break God’s own laws lightly.

And that brings us to the circumstances of this Psalm. The life of David is pretty well chronicled in the Bible and there is no other record of David having a life-threatening illness.

But David struggled throughout his life. I think at times, his own worst enemy was himself. Most of David’s struggles have to do with relationships. It appears that he loved and fought fiercely.

In 1 Samuel 22, we read of how David was betrayed by a dear friend. He was betrayed for political power and reasons. He was betrayed to the point where he spent the next several years away from the Capital of Israel hiding in caves for his life.

I believe that the healing David needed was restoration to the people in his life.

When the Church was growing thousands at a time right after Jesus’ resurrection, we read a phrase in the book of Acts, “The Lord was adding daily to their numbers those who were being saved.”

That term, “saved,” had been picked up by the Evangelical community to speak of the salvation that happens when by the power of the Holy Spirit they sense that their sins are forgiven and washed away.

It is a great feeling and it is deeply spiritual.

But there is so much more to it than merely having our sins forgiven.

I met the pastor of a Congregation in a declining neighborhood near the Parliament in London, England.

His Church was on a turn-around from 12 people to 150, and it was a congregation very much like ours in its diversity, education and theology.

The turn around, he believed was one of faith in what it means for God to be our Savior.

Salvation, he said, is complete. It heals spirit, soul, mind and body. When we decided that our mission was to bring this holistic salvation to our community, we realized that our job was to focus on wholeness in every aspect of life for the community God has called us to serve.

And the point that I took away from that interview was that God’s heart is for reconciliation and healing in every way possible.

Healing is in the heart of God.

Now, God is not as afraid of death as we are.

Since Jesus defeated sin and brokenness and the power of death on the Cross, since Jesus overcame death through the resurrection and gave that same hope to us, we too can have hope both in the love and the power of God.

That brings us to the other text from today, the widow’s son.

Jesus refers to this miracle and to the fact that the boy healed was not even an Israelite.

The miracle happened during a time of drought and famine, a judgment of God because they were turning away from God. There were many widows who were depending on their sons for their retirement support.

Without this son, the lady would most probably die.

Her situation was dire, but so was the situation of many other people.

And the woman asks the question that everyone asks when a tragedy happens: “Why did God do this to me?”

It goes back to this big question of faith. Does God care for me? Does God see my problems? Does God care. And one of the names for God is Jehovah Rophe, the God who sees (our problems).

And this time, in answer to prayer, it appears that God changed the inevitable course of nature that God set up and rose the boy back from the dead.

And Jesus points out to the crowd that apparently God healed what was to them “an undeserving person.”

I love the song “I Believe” by Brooks and Dunn. There is a line in it where he says “If anyone deserves a ticket to the other side, it would be that sweet old man.”

We think in terms of who is and who is not deserving.

But Jesus points out that God is acting in History for God’s own purposes.

This miracle, it appears from verse 24 where she says: “Now I know that you are a man of God…,” shows that God used this to validate the ministry of God’s prophet.

God was doing something in the nation of Israel. I see this, God is acting in history, in the affairs of mankind. I don’t understand how and why all the time, but I see this, Jesus uses this miracle to demonstrate to people that God does indeed care for creation because God cared for her.

The message is this, Not only is God concerned with the governments and institutions that control humanity, but God cares for the individual person as well.

God’s salvation is both corporate and personal.

Today, we are looking at the personal nature of that reconciliation.

I invite you during this next phase of our worship service to come for anointing.

I plan to ask God for healing for my surgery, but more than anything, right now, there are two relationships that I need comfort in reconciliation.

I am going to ask for that as well.