Over the next few weeks, we will hear in church some of the healing stories from St Mark's Gospel. Whenever we read one of these miraculous stories, we are presented with Christ as a miracle worker. He appears more like a magician than a real healer. The wonder and magic of the cure is often highlighted as the central element of the story. As in so many other parts of life, the sensational nature of the healing stories outmanoeuvres their underlying beauty.
In Jesus' time, those who were ill were treated as social outcasts. The one who was sick was even seen as one who had sinned. The leper was particularly despised. He was forced to live in a hostile environment that could not sustain life; as a result, he died. The leper was so ostracised that we now use his title as a synonym for any pariah.
Last weekend we heard the story of Christ bringing healing to a leper - more than healing, he brought about his complete rehabilitation into the society that had expelled him. This weekend, the paralytic that is lowered in through the roof is also healed. In this story there is a difference - Christ tells the paralytic that he is forgiven: "Rise, take up your pallet and walk!"
The forgiveness that Christ offers to the paralytic is also offered to the leper in the underlying message behind the healing story. When we read the miracle stories we should transcend the magic and see the kindness of the mercy and forgiveness that Christ offers indiscriminately to leper and paralytic alike.
Healing is the central mission of Christianity. The one who has strayed - by thought, word, deed or omission - must be welcomed back with open arms. Sadly, there are many who have asked for this healing and have found the way blocked before them. Experience teaches us that our sense of injustice can often exist way outside of what should be its logical confines. The bottom line is that our forgiveness, more often than not, depends on what we think of the person who apologises to us.
Of all the demands that are made on the Christian, the most difficult must be the obligation to transcend his or her biases and see each person who apologises as an equal. Imagine that you lived in an apartment building with wooden floors. In the room above you, the world champion tap-dancer has returned from some competition and is continuing his routine at three in the morning. The next morning he arrives at your door to apologise. If he is your friend you will complain vociferously, but you will forgive.
However, if the dancer is not a friend, or has caused you some offence in the past, you might be like David, who caught King Saul in a cave and said: "The Lord has delivered mine enemy into mine hands!" If this is the case then forgiveness is not only not assured, it is denied! One dancer, one apology - two distinct reactions.
The attempt to receive each person with equal compassion is neither easily assumed nor affected. The past actions or comments of people can leave us cold in the face of a genuine apology and make us ungracious in refusing to accept the naked vulnerability of the apologiser. Yet if we transcend these boundaries that we impose on ourselves, we can experience a genuine joy in bringing about the peace that forgiveness brings. Reconciling ourselves with our personally built lepers and paralytics makes nice stories for us to tell. Their rehabilitation is not something anybody finds very easy, but the effort is worth it!
An apology is not the same as a healing. The apology is only a starting point. The response we allow to follow the words "I am sorry!" is more important.
When an apology arrives, how should a Christian receive it? Jesus' cleansing of the lepers and direct forgiveness of the paralytic give us some direction. He gives no lectures to those who approach him for healing, neither does he cast aspersions on them. He does not tell them that they suffer because of their sins and demerits nor that they are sick through their own association with other undesirables. He does not tell them that they have nobody to blame but themselves. Basically, he does not spurn the outcasts, nor does he demand their humiliation before he is willing to restore them.
But for the grace of God. . .
F.McE.