Healing the helpless

Platitudes are wasted breath. There is no scale to the pain of those whose children will not begin school in 2009, whose children lost their lives in Australia’s worst natural disaster, whose children – still living – will be ever scarred with the terror of lost, burning breath, whose childhood memories of places, rooms and cubbyholes are now erased in the ashes of this solemn and unforgiving tragedy.

The tears that fall from our eyes as we hear the pained stories of heroic and panicked escape; the recounted miracles of being saved by the urgent and frantic aid of the brave all count for little, if all hope is lost.

And for those whose lives lie buried in this national trauma, it may well seem that it is all indeed hope-less. But I cannot believe in this hope-lessness, though I cannot deny the depth of their despair. The stories of Jesus might well not assuage these bereaved and victims, yet there is a power which only the Gospel can offer.

Mark (1:40 – 45) tells of the leper who came to Jesus pleading to be cured. Feeling great compassion, perhaps anger, Jesus touched him and he is healed. Jesus ordered him to say nothing, but to present himself before the priests and make the appropriate offering according to the Law of Moses, yet the man went off and freely told his story everywhere. The consequence was that Jesus could no longer go openly into the townships.

The key to this story is not the leper’s physical recovery, but that Jesus has the power to save even those who are excluded from Israel by the Law of Moses, the helpless, the hopeless. Secondly, despite Jesus’ injunction to say nothing, the healed man is compelled to proclaim the Gospel.

There is always hope, for Jesus has the capacity and desire to touch each of us, and most specially those left bereft and in suffering. His compassion and touch is extended to each and every one of us. As each person is healed, in time and grace, their healing will be a true proclamation of Jesus’ presence and saving power among us.

We pray earnestly for the survivors’ safety, their health and the strength to carry on. This is not some banal, empty platitude. It is at the heart of our faith.