Picking Out the Tunes: Part Four - Healing Forgiveness

This blog series for Easter 2022 is taken directly from the sermon I preached at St Pauls Waiheke (New Zealand) on Easter Day this year. It is focused on the gospel of Mark, and the unconventional way Mark presents the good news of resurrection to his people in mid-century Rome. 

Like any sermon, it draws together thoughts and concepts from the miscellany of writers and preachers that I encountered during my preparation. The positive response of those who were there gives me the courage to think my integration of these ideas may be useful to others. I therefore need to acknowledge that here you will find the echoes of, and possibly even whole sentences from, works by N T Wright (Mark for Everyone), Frederick Buechner (Peculiar Treasures) and David Rhoads et al (Mark as Story). I apologise for the lack of detailed acknowledgement; this was after all a sermon used for Christian worship and not in pursuit of academic rigour.

Healing Forgiveness

A second melody in the Easter fugue rings out forgiveness and healing (shalom). While some people fear death, others in our society are burdened by guilt – about something they did, or something that was done to them. Years ago when I did some counsellor training, I was shown the Gloria Files, films of three counselling sessions with a troubled woman whose difficult divorce had arisen from a relationship outside her marriage. Three reputable counsellors of the day used three differing techniques, and, in my opinion, achieved only limited improvement. I couldn’t help wondering why no one suggested she might need to ask for forgiveness, rather than trying to accept herself and her wrong actions. That may well have brought her peace.

This burden reminds me of Mark's account of the paralysed man whose friends lowered him down  through the roof of Jesus’ house in order for Jesus to heal him. Jesus surprised everyone by instead speaking gentle words of forgiveness. Now we should be wary of linking sin and sickness, and Jesus told us not to (John 9: 3) , but in this man’s case, a word of divine authority spoke into the man’s innermost being and met his need. The witnesses felt uneasy; wasn’t this blasphemy? Only Temple priests could declare forgiveness, speaking in the name of God. The friends should take him to the priests, not to a wandering preacher. But Jesus’ authority was vindicated by the man’s being restored to full health.

Mark’s way of telling the tale helps us pick out the sombre tune amongst the joyful notes of healing.  It points a long way ahead, to Jesus’ trial before Caiaphas, in Mark’s chapter 14. This healing is a mini-version of the whole gospel: Jesus is teaching and healing, Jesus is condemned for blasphemy, Jesus is vindicated. That’s what happened at the end too. The man’s healing points forward to the work of forgiveness that will be attested by the resurrection, and is still promised to anyone who wants it. The Easter chorale brings together brokenness and making whole, in the song of a Christ who takes on sadness and guilt, so we can walk tall, walk free, walk forgiven. 

I noticed that Mark’s gospel doesn’t use sacrificial language and the notion of our forgiveness being “purchased from God" by the work of Christ like some other writers do. He tells of Jesus forgiving sin in his own lifetime, and of empowering the disciples to do so too. He uses themes like the suffering servant and a covenant community. He spotlights Jesus’ own words about the ransoming of a slave, a setting-free that  brings a  person new peace and joy. And that makes sense. If Mark  was indeed writing to Gentile believers under persecution in Rome, the Jewish metaphors of blood atonement and sacrificial lambs would not be particularly helpful. (They are not very helpful today either). Those European believers would, however, know about slavery and bondage. Jesus’ death and resurrection embodied an act of service that defeated sin and sorrow, and restored human beings to right relationship with God. 

To Consider:  Have you seen God's shalom accomplish wholeness - healing and/or forgiveness - in your own life? How?

To be continued…………….