The Problems and Promise of Healing - an Excerpt

Well, it ain’t much really, but here is my meditation on healing for today.  Hopefully my words will be buttressed by the liturgy of healing that will follow my message, and which is the heart of the worship service for today anyway.

The texts for the sermon can be found in this post.

Today I want to focus upon healing.
Now I know the idea of healing gives many people reason to pause,
and it’s easy to understand why.
You only have to turn on your TV or radio to find any number of preachers who claim to have the gift of healing.
Some of them may even ask you to touch the TV or radio as they pray and to expect a miracle.
Just believe, they say, and you will be healed.
Others might ask you to send for a special prayer cloth guaranteed to bring healing for whatever ails you.
I once heard one radio preacher ask his listeners to send for their very own special anointing oil key chain,
filled to the brim with olive oil straight from the Holy Land.
To be honest, there are way too many hucksters out there,
trying to make a buck and a name for themselves,
while taking advantage of people too gullible for their own good.

And because of the nature of healing,
this is easy for some people to pull off.
After all, look at story of Paul and Barnabas we read in Acts.
Here two legitimate disciples and healers are considered gods by the good people of Lystra,
who would have offered sacrifices to them if Paul and Barnabas hadn’t stopped them from doing so.

People with less ethical standards can and do take advantage of those who sincerely desire healing in their lives or in the lives of those they love.
My list of these modern day hucksters would include Pat Robertson,
who loves to tell his TV viewers that there is someone out there in TV land with this or that specific illness or problem,’
and that even as he squints his eyes in prayer,
God is in the process of healing them.
And then there’s Benny Hinn.
As you can see from the photos,
if there is anyone out there with a worse haircut than mine,
that person would be Benny Hinn.
Hinn has a penchant for waving his hands over people or swiping his coat in front of a crowd,
and lo and behold, they are slain in the Spirit and supposedly healed of their diseases all in one fell swoop, so to speak.
Of course, an HBO documentary on Hinn a few years ago,
was unable to verify even one of the Benny’s many “healings,”
but that has not stopped him from becoming one of the wealthiest ministers in the world, with his own private jet, several multi-million dollar homes,
and a yacht, if I am not mistaken. 

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