ephiphany week 6

Psalm: Psalm 30
Old Testament: 2 Kings 5:1-14
Gospel: Mark 1:40-45
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

We are already in the middle of February if you can believe that. Life has a way of rushing in on us. on Saturday a friend’s dad passed away from an accident in Haiti while on a missions trip. Something like this not only puts life in perspective it makes me question God?  I spent Saturday night reading “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis.  The book is basically a collection of his journal entries after the passing of his wife. Towards the end the book he writes:

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask—half our great theological and metaphysical problems—are like that.

I have never experienced grief like what C.S. Lewis did or my friend now feels, but I can’t help but be angry at God for what happened. Lewis so perfectly and honestly expresses his emotions and I encourage you to check it out if it sounds interesting.

Moving on to our passages, a note about the Psalms is important as we think about grief.  The beauty of the Psalms is that they are honest about human emotions.  They don’t try to be polite, politically correct, or fake.  We read the Psalms in church because they allow us to express our emotions.  For anyone in pain, suffering, scared, or near death the Psalms are a place to go for comfort.  For anyone who is rejoicing, the Psalms are place to go to remind us that our blessings come from God.  If anyone wants to praise the Lord God, the psalms provide the words to express the mercy, justice, power and love of God.  

It is ironic that our passages this week deal with theme of healing.  In Psalm 30, the writer was near death and in pain, but the Lord delivered him.  The Psalmist sings praises to the power and mercy of the Lord.  In 2 kings 5 we read of the healing of Naaman, an Aramean general, from leprosy.  God, through Elisha, heals a general of the Israelite’s enemies. There is no broader motivation given for Naaman’s healing, but if we remember back to the covenant with Abraham the Lord tells him, “And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (Gen 12:3) Israel so often forgot that they were chosen to be a blessing to the other nations, but at times like this we see Israel fulfilling its mission.  Our passage in Mark is about Jesus healing a leper.  Jesus was “moved with compassion” and he does something which no one would do in that time and even today many would be hesitant to do: he touched the man.   

But as much as we rejoice in the healings of those we know just as the Naaman or the Leper’s family must have, death eventually took even them.  Luke talks about the healing of Naaman and says that there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha but only Naaman, the foreigner was healed. (Luke 4:27) What about all those people Elisha didn’t heal or the ones Jesus never met? 

Lewis talks about the false hopes he and his wife went through offered by the medical professional and even a temporary relapse of his wife’s cancer.  In the end however the cancer overtook her and Lewis wonders if God is just a cosmic-sadist and when God “seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture.”

For every healing or miracle there is an example of a Christian saint dying from an unexplainable accident.  God’s mercy seems to be as random as a bolt of lightning; it strikes where it wills. I don’t know what to say to this week.  Lewis’s words stick by me and resonate with the sentiments of Job when he has to “repent in dust and ashes” and retract any questions he had of God.  God is too great to understand and Job says, “I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” (Job 42)

Perhaps after writing this blog I need to repent in dust and ashes. There are so many questions we can ask of God and things we don’t understand. It is things like this which make me yearn for the New Creation when all things will be made new in Christ.  Sin and death are a fact of life in the present age.  As Christians are confession is that “Jesus is Lord” and through his Spirit he is restoring all things unto himself for the glory of the Father.  That is our confession, even during the hard times when we doubt that God is real or that he cares about us.  We must continue to confess our faith no matter how we feel or what we think. We confess until we believe again. 

May the Spirit of God fill you with his faith and peace this week as we run the race of life.

Sorry if this week is a bit rambling. It has been hard for me to get my thoughts and feelings together in 800 words and still be confronted by what the Scripture has to say.