Seekers in Pain
"Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
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“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”
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Dear Kate,
Do you know anyone who is in pain, has always been and likely will always be, long before and probably forever after the pandemic, vaccine or not?
If you do, you would have likely known this person for having "endured much under many physicians."
In another more contemporary translation of the same passage above, the sufferer is said to have been "treated badly." I am sure the translator, Eugene Peterson, was having his tongue firmly in cheek. (Actually I can hear him giggling now.)
Have you treated anyone badly lately? Giving him the cold shoulder? Slamming your door on her face?
Or could the situation have been so bad that you treated the person and her pain as if they don't even exist, matter but not enough for anyone to stop one's life to take another look--at her, at her pain, and at the Jesus who is carrying both? Do we even know anyone like this personally, carrying them with us to the foot of the cross day and night?
We treat people badly.
In Pastor Sam's open letter video to our Provincial Health Officer and Minister of Health, he spoke about "despite their church having followed public health orders, they have had individuals coming onto their church property, peering through the windows, pulling into their driveway and asking if they were meeting, among other things."
Who are these people peering into a church?
They are not seekers in pain, trying to slip in from behind Jesus to touch his robe, in hope of being healed. They are not-so-secret police of Absolute Morality, patrolling not the shopping mall or the sports bar or the fitness class or other essential, life-giving, life-affirming enterprises, "physicians" that we all must not live without, even if all of them have been "treating" our dying body and mind rather badly. The peering-in people are, in shorthand, Pharisees.
I too was peering into a church last week, an Orthodox cathedral I visited not last Christmas but the one before. I was trying to see if anything was happening inside, so that I could come in from the cold, slip in from behind and touch the robe of healing. I know seniors had been coming from all parts of my province every week to gather there, as if--childish enough of them to think--Jesus would show up, his robe within their reach.
Our church doesn't have the problem of Pastor Sam's church. No one is going to mistake us for being disobedient to the Rulers of our world, disrespectful of the Kings and Queens in the Christian community, that we are too Right to stay Left out in preserving a good social order and God's good name. We too might be in pain ourselves, all life long, no way out, but we are doing a good job patrolling our own hearts. The show must go on.
Last night I was talking to a friend who had, literally, "endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had." Hopeless, she said. I had no word for her, not one that wouldn't come off as offensive, obscene, obnoxious. I was in no place to stand in her place. What I gave her was a shard of timber, a small piece broken off from the log on which Jesus was hanged, and invited her to build her house with that, one small piece at a time, one morning after another, on the Rock. I am sure at the end I still scandalized her.
And now, my friend, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself, searching night and day. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without Jesus is the real death, that to die with Him the only life?
Yours, Alex
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