During May I will be preaching a series of four sermons following the general theme of “God’s Healing Gifts.” We will be considering how God uses many different life experiences to bring grace-gifts to us. Grace – the gift of God’s love freely offered to us in Christ – sets us free to love God, to love ourselves and to love others.

Sunday, May 13 (Confirmation Class/Mother’s Day

Sermon: “The Healing Gift of Laughter.”  Philippians 4:4-9, John 16:16-24

Sunday, May 20 Teacher appreciation

Sermon: “The Healing Gift of Silence.” Isaiah 40:27-31, Mark 1:29-39

Sunday, May 21 (Pentecost Sunday) –

Sermon: “The Healing Gift of Touch.” Luke 5:12-16

“Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.”  The late Golda Meir.

“I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see.”  Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff – (his 25 yr.old son was killed in a climbing accident.)

When we experience how much we are loved and forgiven by God in Jesus Christ, we will find ourselves becoming increasingly compassionate; extending grace, forgiveness and love to others.

In Luke 7:36-50 we see the contrast between two attitudes of heart and mind.  Simon was not conscious of a need.  He was wrapped up in his own self-sufficiency, his own righteousness.  Simon knew what was religiously correct.  Simon knew God’s commands.  But somehow Simon misses the very nature of God who is the giver of unconditional love and forgiveness.   The woman, however, was overwhelmed with great need.  She was overwhelmed with love for the One who has been described as the healer of our souls.

The kind of meal that was going on was not a private meal. In this kind of setting other folks could come in and observe the meal. Those who were eating reclined on low couches with their head resting on their left arm. They would reach in towards the food with their right hand, their feet extended away from the table. Their sandals were removed.

It took a lot of courage for this woman to enter a public setting.  The implication is that the woman is a prostitute. The costly ointment or perfume might have been a part of her trade. The woman is certainly aware of public opinion regarding her.

As she approaches Jesus, she begins to weep, sobbing convulsively.  She is overcome with emotion - her tears falling on the feet of Jesus. 

Of course, “proper women” did not let their hair down in public, but this woman did so. She begins to wipe Jesus’ feet with her hair - kissing his feet and anointing them with perfume.  There’s an intimacy about this woman’s actions towards Jesus that makes us uncomfortable.  There’s a lot of touching going on.  There’s a lot of emotion.  This woman would have been considered ritually unclean and when she touched Jesus, she would make Jesus unclean.  But Jesus accepts the woman’s touch, her tenderness and love, in this intimate, but socially awkward moment.1

Hans Kung, Catholic theologian, in his book On Being a Christian wrote, “The absolutely unpardonable thing was not Jesus’ concern for sick, the cripples, the lepers, the possessed, nor even his partisanship with poor, humble people.  The real trouble was that he got involved with moral failures, with obviously irreligious and immoral people, people morally and politically suspect, so many dubious, obscure, abandoned hopeless types on the fringe of every society.  That was his real scandal.” 

The woman experiences the healing gift of tears: God reaching down inside of her, melting her heart with unconditional love and forgiveness until the tears flow.  Martin Luther calls tears “Heart Water.”  I love that description—heart water, a gift from God. 

We want to find ourselves in the person of this woman. When we experience how much we are loved, how much we are forgiven by God in Christ we will find ourselves becoming increasingly compassionate towards others, extending to them the same grace, mercy and forgiveness that we have received.

When was the last time you really cried?  How did you respond to your own emotions when you felt the tears coming?

Author Ken Gire says, “Perhaps there are no greater windows into the soul than our own tears.” 

Frederick Buechner writes, “Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should be next.”

Many persons in recovery from abuse will often cry about painful experiences that they begin to feel for the first time. The woman who comes to Jesus is feeling love and forgiveness.  She knows something about this person who has been speaking and she feels in her very being grace and forgiveness.

It’s true that some things in our lives have never been cried out. I believe that when God brings to mind experiences that should be cried out there is release and healing…a kind of divine cleansing.

Emotions come from the One who created us, who loves us, who forgives us, who heals us, who accepts us.  From the God who loves and embraces us as a mother and as a father.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem.  Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus.  Jesus wept in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

Remember Peter weeping bitterly after he denied Jesus three times?  He went out and wept uncontrollably, “What have I done?  What have I done?  I denied my Lord.”  I believe that all of us may be able to think of a time where we said to ourselves, “I denied my Lord.”  And yet God is there to say, “I will not deny you even in your denial of me.  I love you.  I forgive you.”

Alan Culpepper, Dean of the School of Theology at Mercer University, raises this question: “Does love lead to forgiveness or is the ability to love the result of being forgiven?  I don’t think the question is easily answered because the issue can be seen from both perspectives.  Jesus accepted the woman’s expression of love as a sign that she had been forgiven much.  And love is the natural response to being forgiven.  But the capacity to love is directly related to the ability to receive grace, to receive forgiveness and to receive love.” 

Gathered here this morning we receive afresh God’s grace, forgiveness and love….God’s healing gift of tears may come at unexpected times, in unexpected places and with unexpected people…and what the gift comes, welcome it and receive God’s healing.

…….And then we give away what we have received. 

1 See R. Alan Culpepper’s Introduction, Commentary and Reflections on the Gospel of Luke in Volume IX of The New Interpreter’s Bible.