Mark 10:45

Tag: healing

  • Being a “Keeper”

    Being a “Keeper”

    Monday of the 3rd Week of Lent

    2 Kings 5:1-15ab

    When I was a boy, our family car stopped running while Dad and I were visiting one of his friends. A big, powerful engine… completely frozen. Dad and his friend tore the engine apart and discovered the problem: a tiny metal piece called a “keeper” that held a piston in place. Just a little part, no bigger than your fingertip. But without it, the whole engine was useless.

    Again and again in Scripture, God works through small voices:

    • A shepherd boy defeats a giant.
    • A widow’s two coins outweigh a fortune.
    • A child’s lunch feeds a crowd.
    • And today, a little slave girl starts the miracle that heals Naaman.

    I think the lesson is clear. We should never dismiss someone because they seem insignificant. God chooses whomever He wills, not whoever makes sense to us.

    The slave girl is a perfect case in point. On the one hand, she had no power, no position, no influence. On the other, she did have the courage to speak the truth she knew: “If only my master would go to the prophet in Israel…”

    Because she spoke, a man was healed. And that healing began with something very small: one person willing to speak, and another willing to listen, even to someone he could have easily ignored.

    This raises two questions for us:

    First: Who are the little voices in my life? Who might God be speaking through that I tend to overlook? A child… a spouse… a friend… a stranger… even someone who irritates me.

    Second: To whom might I be the little voice? Maybe God wants to use one small word from me – a word of encouragement, an invitation, a reminder about prayer, a quiet act of kindness — to start something good in someone else’s life.

    Sometimes the engine of grace in someone’s life is waiting for one tiny “keeper”— one small voice willing to speak. Let us ask Almighty God for the grace to hear that voice ourselves, and to be that voice for others.

  • Repentance and Renewal

    Repentance and Renewal

    Ash Wednesday

    Joel 2:12-18; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

    When my father’s mother died, it was customary where she lived to bring in women whose role was to mourn publicly at the wake. As a kid I thought it was strange, but my dad really disliked it. To him, their sorrow was a performance; it didn’t even remotely come from the heart. What was also clear was that my dad’s anger wasn’t mere self-righteousness; I saw in his behavior for a long time that his grief was real and heartfelt.

    That’s the question in the first reading. In the prophet Joel’s time, it was customary to tear your garments if you were sorrowful or repentant. But when it came to their relationship with the Lord God, were these people truly sorry or repentant? It was hard to tell. For years, they were back and forth, up and down in their fidelity to Him. That’s why the prophet insists that repentance is something far deeper than a torn garment; it is felt in the heart.

    We can see that difference in the psalm. Consider David’s words: “Have mercy on me, O God… Against you only have I sinned…Cast me not out from your presence…” We can almost feel his remorse. Despite all his ups and downs over the years, David truly loved the Lord. Any of us who have ever hurt someone we deeply love understand the sorrow, guilt, and remorse we feel. We’d do anything to take back what we’ve said or done, and never want to hurt them again.

    But David doesn’t stop there; from the depths of his repentance he goes on to say, “A clean heart create for me, O God… Give me back the joy of your salvation, and a willing spirit sustain in me.” He knows that only God can heal his brokenness and renew his spirit.

    That desire for repentance and renewal is something we can all relate to, especially on Ash Wednesday. Hopefully, it also helps us feel the urgency that goes with it. As St. Paul reminds us, repentance isn’t a “some day” project: “Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation.” So as we come forward to receive ashes, remember: they have meaning only if they reflect a real desire for change within us. Otherwise, they’re just a smudge on our forehead. As we begin Lent, the question is this: Are we simply “wearing” ashes, or are we owning our sinfulness and turning like David to the only One who can heal what is broken within us?

  • If You Will, You Can Make Me Clean

    If You Will, You Can Make Me Clean

    As I lie on these hospital tables, beds, and gurneys – shuffled from one test or procedure to another – one Scripture verse keeps echoing through my mind: If you will, you can make me clean (Mark 1:40).

    A leper, suffering and solitary, kneels before Jesus and makes this plea. How he came to believe in Jesus, we don’t know. But I do know the desperation behind those words. I feel it.

    I have excellent, highly trained specialists working on my case. I trust them completely. But as each one would admit, they can’t simply will away the disease that is slowly trying to kill me.

    These men and women give me hope. But none of them are Hope. Only the man standing before the leper is that.

    And of course, Christ is willing. The leper is healed.

    That’s where I want to be, too. Everyone facing illness or trauma wants that healing. It’s easy to get frustrated and cry out:“He can do it! Why hasn’t He healed me? So many are praying! Lord, please will that I be healed! Please…”

    Silence.

    But not inaction.

    What do I mean? Well, look at what Mark says happened next: After Jesus cured the man, the leper went out and told everyone what had happened, while Jesus remained outside, in deserted places (Mark 1:45).

    In other words, Jesus traded places with him.

    So what am I saying – that Jesus has traded places with me? In a very real way, yes.

    In His divine nature, Jesus can only love infinitely. And that love was most fully expressed in His suffering and death on the cross. As He said, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for a friend” (John 15:13). And by His wounds, says Isaiah, we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

    Love is healing, and there is no love without suffering.

    As I have lain here, I’ve realized something: I’m glad I have this cancer instead of my wife, my children, my siblings, or anyone else. I don’t mean that in a self-congratulatory way, I just mean that this suffering is shaping me. It’s making me a better man, in the sense of showing me even more clearly the vital importance of love in action. Love has to drive everything I do: every conversation, every act, every moment… joyful or painful.

    That’s how Christ lived, and how he calls me to live, too; not just in the good times, but also in the worst – to the cross and beyond.

    And that’s why Christ is my true Hope. Not because I expect him to will away my disease with a word (though of course he could), but because, out of love, he already healed the deeper, spiritual disease: sin and eternal separation from him.

    He asks me to unite myself to the Father’s will just as he did, and to trust that I’m not forgotten any more than he was. He took upon himself the leprosy of sin and went into the wilderness of suffering in my place so that I can proclaim, even where I am now, the love that is stronger than death (Song of Songs 8:6).

    Will my cancer be healed? I don’t know. Maybe God will heal me through the people at this hospital. Maybe He’ll heal it directly. Maybe He won’t heal it at all.

    But, no matter what, He loves me. He has taken my place. And in doing so, He has already made me clean in the only way that truly matters.

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