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Pastor · Sunday Schedule · FBC
News
September
2004
From the Pastor
What Does It Mean To Be Healed?
Sunday, August 15, as part of our worship service, we conducted a service of healing. The entire worship service was uplifting, including an expanded praise band of eight members and two piano, organ duets by Wayne Whitten and Sylvia Loe. Our spirits rose with each chorus and hymn, but then it came time for the service of healing, an act that included the laying on of hands and anointing.
The invitation for people to come forward was without expectation. The thought was healing is a gift offered to the church. It is there, available, and whether one or more receive it, it remains within the church, a gift from God. It is the same as offering communion. It is for “whosoever will.” On that summer Sunday over fifty people came forward!
I don’t know the expectations that were in people’s hearts. I don’t know the prayers and hopes that were stirred that morning. The only thing I know is that God heard every one of them, and through a human touch, a drop of oil and a prayer God answered back. It was not that these things in themselves healed. They are after all of the earth, mortal, finite, but God is Infinite and God’s Spirit works through what He has created to bring healing and answer prayer. It is the Spirit that heals.
Yet, after the service we are left to ponder, what might have been the healing? In the first sense the answer is personal, as private as our deepest thought and belongs to each person who came forward. In a second sense, however, I think I can speak more broadly of the Spirit’s presence and the healing we all might have experienced. I imagine that everyone within the service might have been able to say, “He touched me.”
For one thing, there was an experience of togetherness. We experienced what it means to be members one of another. One person said to me following the worship service that she had never experienced a greater sense of intimacy within a worship service of the Church. This awareness of fellowship, this sense of community is something that transcends ourselves and is perfected through the Spirit working in our midst, making us who we are, the mystical Church of Jesus Christ.
Second, what the Spirit brought to us, working through all the malice of our fears and insecurities was a breath of hope and joy and peace. We breathed the Spirit. We left the service more human than we entered. The day seemed brighter even though it was raining outside. In some quiet way we reentered the world less dissatisfied and discouraged, and feeling hopeful, a hope placed in us, again, by the presence of the Spirit.
Too quickly we dismiss these times with little thought except to think, that was a good worship service or I got something out of that, or the semi awareness, walking to our car that we feel good, we are glad we went to church. What I am saying is that we are having those feelings because recognized or not to us, God answered our prayer. God gave us what we wanted. We were healed. A sense of equilibrium was restored to our life. We were touched, moved, encouraged. God heard our prayer and answered. That hope, that joy, that encouragement was reborn in us by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. In a simple touch, in a drop of oil, or simply sitting in a pew, God looked with compassion upon us and brought healing on the wings of a dove, His Holy Spirit.
Dr. David W. Andersen
          
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