Rectors Reflections April 2005

Living the Resurrected Life

On March 12, a Healing Mission was held at St. John’s and about 40 people came to learn more about Christian Healing and to receive prayer for healing with laying on of hands. In the first years of Christianity, recorded in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, we read about many different occasions of prayer for healing. Peter and John prayed for the man at the Beautiful Gate in Jerusalem (Acts 3: 1-10). Paul prayed and God restored life to Dorcas (Acts 9:36 -43). Paul also preached a sermon of such length (many hours) that Eutychus fell asleep and fell out of a window, dying from the impact. Paul prayed for him, and Eutychus, also, was brought back from death (Acts 20:7-12). (There are no intentions on my part to preach as long as Paul did!)

Healing was taken for granted in the early church. Healing was considered a sign of the resurrected life – a life which had died to the power of death and been raised to the power of God’s life; a life which had died to power of the flesh and was raised to the power of the Holy Spirit; a life which had died to the power of fear and was raised to the power of faith. Because Christ was risen, it was expected that through the power of the Holy Spirit, present in and through the Body of Christ, he would continue to do the same works that he did when he walked on this earth. For the early Christians, resurrection and healing were two sides of the same coin . Interestingly, both the healing of the sick and the preaching of Christ’s resurrection from the dead evoked persecution from the Roman Empire and even from the Jewish religious authorities.

In recent years, the ministry of the healing of the sick is beginning to come back into the Episcopal Church and other denominations as well. Some denominations have always understood that prayer is a means by which we can place ourselves into the river of God ’s healing power and love. At the Healing Mission, there were pastors from the Gateway Church of God in Christ who laid on hands and prayed for healing, along with the other team members from St. John’s . And healings were received: backs healed, emotions healed, relationships with God healed. But healing is not limited to cure. Healing is the whole process of living the resurrected life.

The resurrected life is, first, a life lived in conscious relationship with God through prayer. Secondly, the resurrected life is a life lived in continuous gratitude to Christ – for the forgiveness of our sins, the restoration of our wholeness, and the overcoming of our separation from God and from each other. This gratitude is more than just an attitude, it is a life lived in service to others, loving others as Christ loved us – sacrificial and self-giving service. Finally, the resurrected life is a life lived in constant reliance on the Holy Spirit to guide, strengthen, and sustain us through all that we do. It is the Holy Spirit, who calls us into Christian community and gives us the unity to live and proclaim the Good News.

In January, you were invited to use the following prayer throughout the year to come:

Lord Jesus, we pray that you will somehow give us ears to hear, hearts to love, and wills devoted to serve; that in the days to come this congregation may be known, not for our glory, but for thine alone – a congregation of people who know the Lord and a congregation of people who serve the Lord by serving others; that this place may be an oasis, a place where people come to find out about you, where lives are straightened out and made whole, where people find the peace that passes understanding, and where God’s love excludes no one. Give us, we pray, a heart to desire these things above all else. We pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

It seems to me that this prayer is a summary of the resurrected life. Now, mind you, I do not always feel like I am living the resurrected life. The weeks prior to Holy Week were stressful and tiring. Yet, when we align our hearts and wills with the intentions of this prayer, it is a step that can open us, once again, to receive the love, joy, and power of God. Then we can step back into that glorious spiritual place where God sustains us through all of life’s trials and challenges, and we are renewed in mind, body, and spirit. That is living the resurrected life.