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GOOD NEWS FOR A CHANGE
A sermon preached February 15,
2009 at University United Methodist Church, East Lansing, by John Ross Thompson
Psalm 30
30:1 I will extol you, O LORD,
for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
30:2 O LORD my God, I cried to
you for help, and you have healed me.
30:3 O LORD, you brought up my
soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.
30:4 Sing praises to the LORD,
O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
30:5 For his anger is but for a
moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy
comes with the morning.
30:6 As for me, I said in my
prosperity, "I shall never be moved."
30:7 By your favor, O LORD, you
had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed.
30:8 To you, O LORD, I cried,
and to the LORD I made supplication:
30:9 "What profit is there in
my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of
your faithfulness?
30:10 Hear, O LORD, and be
gracious to me! O LORD, be my helper!"
30:11 You have turned my
mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
30:12 so that my soul may
praise you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
Mark 1:40-45
1:40 A leper came to him
begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me
clean."
1:41 Moved with pity, Jesus
stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made
clean!"
1:42 Immediately the leprosy
left him, and he was made clean.
1:43 After sternly warning him
he sent him away at once,
1:44 saying to him, "See that
you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for
your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."
1:45 But he went out and began
to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go
into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from
every quarter.
How many of you this week have
heard or read something about Charles Darwin?
In this week that celebrated
the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, there has been a lot
of media attention science and faith, especially since there are a few religious
persons who still refuse to accept what science has discovered.
I was somewhat at a loss to
preach about the Mark story of Jesus healing a leper, until I came across the
following magazine article.
Time Magazine – February 23,
2009 – “How Faith Can Heal” cover story.
I’m always interested in what
the non-religious media says about faith. That’s why this Time section was
informative to those of us who are Christian.
1. Regular church
attendance on the average will add 2 to 3 years to your life. (One person this
morning asked me after hearing this, “Can we have worship services every day?”)
2. People who attend
religious services have a lower risk of dying in any one year than people who
don’t attend.
3. People who believe in a
loving God fare better after a diagnosis of illness than people who believe in a
punitive God.
4. No less a killer that
AIDS will back off at least a bit when it’s hit with a double-barreled blast of
belief.
5. Fasting helps relieve
stress and pain, cleansing the body and making it more healthy
6. Believing in a cure
leads to real bodily changes. Even tumors will shrink if a person believes a
placebo is real medicine.
7. 94% of patients said it
was perfectly all right for doctors to ask them about their religious beliefs,
and yet few doctors do.
8. Regular churchgoers
weather economic downturns as well as the stresses and health woes that go along
with them.
9. People who give help
fare better than those who receive help. “A pillar of religious belief if there
ever was one.”
10. Prayer makes a real
difference for those who believe in it.
11. Spiritual persons have
higher immunity levels.
12. Religious faiths almost
universally believe in healing, no matter what culture they are in.
Those who wrote the psalms knew
how tough life can be. It was psalmists who said the following:
1. My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?
2. Dash your children’s
heads against a stone.
3. Words about being in a
spiritual and psychological pit.
4. Human emotions of every
conceivable kind.
Yet, most psalms are
triumphant. The Psalmists realize in the end that God is with them, that hope
is stronger than despair, and that their trust in God is all that they need.
We have a choice as people of
2009 to focus on the negative or to keep the big picture in mind. As people of
faith, we are people who trust, who believe, who know some of God’s work in this
world. Therefore, like the psalmists, we respond differently to what happens in
our world.
We need to be realistic about
the world in which we live, but we do not need to be captured by the negative
view of the world shared by many.
As a communications major in
college, I learned to defend the media, because I believed then that our media
did a good job of objectively reporting the news. That has changed dramatically
in recent years, with much of the media focusing on the polar opposites of
opinion on any issue. We can even chose the media outlet that most reflects our
own point of view. Often we hear the proponents of an issue and those who
oppose it, the best and worst case scenarios, not a balanced view. Is it any
wonder that those of us who listen to news reports get disillusioned about the
state of the world?
We can honestly and openly know
what is going on in the world without becoming part of its negative view. Like
the psalmists, who need the depths and the heights of emotion, our Christian
faith can help us to know a better way. Some of us have learned to limit our
intake of bad news in favor of filling ourselves regularly with the good news.
Remember that gospel means “good news.’
The words of Psalm 30 help us.
We know that our sorrow will turn to comfort, our mourning to joy.
When we do have a problem, we
can know that Jesus, who did the unthinkable when he touched a leper, will touch
us and lift us up. Healing comes, often in miraculous ways that we could never
imagine.
Healing of emotions.
Healing of attitude.
Healing of relationships.
Healing of the body.
The Good News is always that
the power of faith is stronger than evil. Faith overcomes. Faith comes out on
top. Faith is the final word, not death.
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