2013-06-06 Daniel Daring 2013 articles 2012 articles
Tenth
Sunday: The key to a miracle
1 Kings 17:17-24; Galatians 1:11-19; Luke
7:11-17
The only healing I can personally attest to took place in 1995 during the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Convention held in my country. The man was in his sixties with a walking stick. The miracle happened during the Mass. He walked from his place to the altar and described what the Lord had just done to him. I was thrilled. There were other physical and spiritual healings reported that evening, but that man, often seen by me walking with a cane, was to me a proof that God has again visited His people (Luke 7:16). Suddenly, I realized how signs and wonders are important to keep our faith alive. The message of the Gospel was never intended to come “in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5). During that Convention, I also heard that every believer is equipped with the gift of healing and that Jesus gave us the promise that “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12). Yet, there are so few signs and wonders happening in our midst at present, and many of us complain of not being heard by God.
“When the Lord saw her [the widow mourning her only son], he had compassion for her” (Luke 7:13). The key to every miracle is compassion. When we feel the pain of others, we begin to think and pray for a solution. It was the springboard for almost every miracle performed by Jesus. A leper came to Him begging for healing. “Moved with pity,” Jesus healed him (Mark 1:41); before feeding the five thousand people, Jesus “had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34) and had nothing to eat (Mark 8:2). Luke's two great parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son put this feeling into the hearts of the main characters: “moved with pity,” a Samaritan offered helped (Luke 10:33); “filled with compassion,” the father ran to embrace his son (Luke 15:20). God seems to be searching our hearts for this virtue before responding to our prayers. That can be proved by examining the stories of Elijah bringing back to life the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:17-24), of Elisha providing a solution to a financial trouble of a widow in the famous story about a jar of oil (2 Kings 4:1-7), or of Peter bringing back to life a disciple of Jesus named Tabitha (Act 9:36-43). In all these stories – and many others as well – we can realize that the main actors are moved with compassion. They showed a concern for others, for those who could not expect help from anyone, and God was so pleased with this attitude that a miracle took place.
Now, I often hear an excuse that we are neither the prophets nor the apostles. Even if our hearts are moved with pity, we feel so powerless to do anything to help. The first disciples of Jesus faced a similar problem and James gave them a clear answer: “the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest” (James 5:16-18). The prophets and the apostles were people like us: not perfect or better than us. But they persisted in their prayers. We have to realize that the prayer of someone who is moved with compassion can work wonders. It can bring healing, solution, relief, and – most of all – salvation to other people's lives.
The New Interpreter's Bible has this comment in relation to Jesus resuscitating the son of the widow (Luke 7:11-17): “Had Jesus passed by that funeral procession on the other side when he had the power to stop it, none of his other works would have made much difference.” We may brag about many achievements in our lives, but if there is no concern for others, especially less privileged, then we have missed something essential in life. A purely individualist religion that is solely concerned with “mine” and “ours” will never be able to perform any true miracle, because God is not pleased with selfish people. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27). If we want to experience more often God's visitation in our lives, let us begin to care for each other, for the people around us, and for the environment. In such a way, we will be able again to defeat the forces of death in our lives.