When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.”

I want to start today by telling you about our niece, Jennifer, who cost me money last week, which most of my nieces and nephews do on a regular basis.

Jennifer, as many of you remember and are kind to ask about often, was involved in a diving accident several years ago that left her, at that time, paralyzed from the shoulders down. The early prognosis was uniformly grim: she would never recover the use of her legs and her arms, she would never rise and walk again.

But the doctors and therapists didn’t give up on her.

And her mother didn’t give up on her.

And people of God in so many different places, including here in this community of faithful and persistent prayer, didn’t give up on her.

And she didn’t give up on herself.

And God never gave up on her.

She now lives in her own apartment, next door to her mother.

She is enrolled, on line, at the community college and is pursuing her Associates degree.

She has learned how to use crutches and walkers to get herself around and can go for some distances without the aid of either.

She has given new life to God’s ongoing effort to drain all of the power from the word “never”.

And so we received an email from Jenn a couple of weeks ago telling us that she was going skiing yesterday.

It was a fund-raiser, ski-a-thon for The Adaptive Adventure Sports Coalition of Columbus, Ohio where she lives. They get people up and moving, to the best of their current abilities, and, of course, as with our other nieces and nephews, who better to hit up for a donation that Aunt Debi and Uncle Jack?

So how did she do yesterday? Well got a voice mail telling us it was a great day, and email with pictures this morning and she looked great and we plan on calling for details this afternoon.

And I do know is that I have rarely been as happy to get hit up for money.

And I do know is that over the last several years, I and you and Jenn and everyone connected to her have been a part of a miracle of healing.

And I do know is that her healing is very, very good.

And Jennifer is not the only healing miracle that I have been a part of, nor are bodies the only parts of us that God heals.

I look around the room and I see so many reminders of people whose bodies have known a healing, I remember those, whom we loved, who were given extra time, extra years of benediction and farewell.

I look around the room and I see so many souls who have lived out the old song by Kris Kristoferson: choosing every wrong direction on the lonely way back home. And yet back home is where our spiritual healing has led us.

And I know how many homes have teetered on the brink of becoming mere houses, emptied of affection, as the pressures of living and the needs of children and the demands of jobs tore at the promises of “for better or for worse”, until the healing slowly brought back those white lace dreams of happily ever after.

And I know the wounds, self-inflicted at times, undeserved at others, that you and I have experienced and the struggle to heal them and the ways in which a word or a gesture can bring the pain back in a rush.

The healing work of God is important work and it is a blessing to take part in it and it is an overwhelming joy to be the recipient of it. However, to be fair, God doesn’t seem to be all that overwhelmed by healing.

“Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.”

Oh, don’t get me wrong, healing – the journey from brokenness to wholeness, whether it is physical, spiritual, emotional or relational – is a gift that God gives us, but it isn’t as high on God’s priority list as it is on ours.

Consider our NT lesson when the mother-in-law of Peter knew that healing touch.

Jesus and his disciples showed up at Peter’s home only to discover that his mother-in-law was sick. Well Jesus healed her, he took her by the hand and lifted her up and the fever left her.

Then the word gets out and that night everyone in the city who had any sort of disease of body or soul showed up at Peter’s house and, one by one, Jesus deals with them, healing them.

The next morning the disciples woke up thinking that they had the rest of their lives planned out. They wanted Jesus to do the same thing that we want Jesus to do: set up shop, go into the healing business here on the shores of Galilee, let the people come to him, keep us safe where we are right here and right now and don’t make us go through the discomfort of change.

But Jesus was gone and they went out and found him and he was ready to move on.

“Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.”

You see Jesus never lost sight of what he had come to do.

Were healings a part of that?

Sure they were, but they were never the focus.

As with Peter’s mother-in-law, the healings are always meant to lead to something else: The fever left her and she began to serve them.

That is why God heals us, so that we might serve.

Think about the ways in which you have been healed, which is another way of saying: think about the places where you have been broken and put back together again by God. Think about all of the scars and nicks and dings that your body and soul have endured.

Aren’t they the places of strength in you soul and your life?

We carry our healings with us and the very hurts that we have endured can become our support of others.

It is what we are here to do, I told someone this week about the ways in which the women of Clover Hill, who have been through Breast Cancer, flock to the support of each new diagnosis, providing healing long before the medical people take their shot at it.

And I have seen the men of Clover Hill, who have gone through the identity threatening fears of job loss, provide consolation and guidance to those who are now being tossed and turned by the storms of the economy.

And I have watched parents pass along survival hints to those who are just entering the twilight zone of children in middle school.

And I remember how more than a few of you helped to heal Debi and me, years ago, as we dealt with the deaths of our fathers and that long farewell of my mother, and we have tried to share those insights with others as they face the delicate task of becoming the parent for our parents, as we go through that season of saying goodbye to them.

What I am trying to say is that the healing that God provides is meant to result in service, in the next town, or the next relationship, we find.

Wait for it, look for it, push yourself out of the comfort zone of doing what others expect from you and into the sacredness of doing what God expects of you.

And I know the argument, “oh, my life is such a mess I don’t have the time or energy or resources to do anything but get through the day, one hour at a time.”

But isn’t God the one who is healing you?

And isn’t God the one who promises, through Isaiah those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wing like easgles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

You’ve got the time, I’ve got the time, we just choose to use it poorly.

Where should we be using it?

Start with prayer.

You see, with each passing year I become increasingly confident in the power of prayer.

For I have seen the healing that comes from prayer.

And what of the people who have died, even when we have all prayed for their life to continue?

They have been healed, in the ultimate way, as they have entered into that presence of God where there is no more pain or suffering, no more illness or death.

But for the rest of us, the healing continues so that our service can continue. It may be service of hospitality as it was for Peter’s mother-in-law.

It may be the service of example of perseverance as it is for our niece Jennifer, who has taught me to keep going even when I want to quit and to pay no attention to the word “impossible”.

It may be the service of prayers offered, as it is for so many of you, prayer that have sustained us in our darkest days.

It may be the service of teaching or singing or cleaning the Church or being a greeter, the things that so many of you do so faithfully and wonderfully.

What ever it is, God has healed you for a purpose and the only way you will find that purpose is by continuing to move on in your journey of life, continuing to seek and discover what it is that you came into this life to do, what it is that you have been healed for.

When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.”