And yet, as a culture, we’ve adopted the language of “wrestling with our demons” and “facing our demons.” Whether we mean addiction or sin, we use the terminology to describe our struggle against that which is within us that is trying to destroy us.
But adapted terminology doesn’t mean that we’re any more comfortable talking about our demons. Lust, anger, selfishness, greed, our avarice and apathy and pride and pettiness; these aren’t things we like to address or discuss or deal with.
And often I think we’d be better off if our demons could cry out the way they did when Jesus was around. How much better off we'd be if we couldn’t avoid exposing our sin to one another. If, one night when we gathered together, we were stricken like Jim Carrey in Liar Liar, forced to be honest about our demons, our sins, our struggles.
I wrote a paper once in college about The Scarlet Letter, and the fact that Hester Prynne, forced to have her sin exposed, finds healing while Dimmesdale, who keeps his sin hidden, is slowly destroyed. I wondered then, and still wonder, is it possible that Hawthorne wasn’t saying that Hester shouldn’t have her sin exposed, but that the rest of us should join her?
Because we like to think of our sin as our business. We like to think that we’ll get this fixed by ourselves, but can’t ever seem to. It makes me wish all our sins were harder to hide. Maybe then we'd be more open to Christ's healing.
Because we like to think of our sin as our business. We like to think that we’ll get this fixed by ourselves, but can’t ever seem to. It makes me wish all our sins were harder to hide. Maybe then we'd be more open to Christ's healing.
Because, much as we might say otherwise, we are a people who avoid healing.
I'm reminded of a story of a healing that is recorded in the 5th chapter of John's gospel:
Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"
This is the part that strikes me about this story; Jesus asks the man, “Do you want to get well?”
It seems like the stupidest question Jesus could ask. “No," thinks the man, "I sit out at this pool in the hopes of not getting well.” And yet the question is a good one, a great one, an important one. Because the man has gotten used to being the lame man. There’s a certain lifestyle that goes along with it. If Jesus heals him, everything changes. Jesus is, in essence, asking the man, “are you sure you want everything to change?”
Which reminds me of the story, recorded in the Old Testament, of Naman; an army commander with leprosy, who hears from his Hebrew slave about a prophet and healer named Elisha. Naaman goes to Elisha to be healed and is told by Elisha’s messenger to wash seven times in the Jordan river. But Naaman has his own ideas about healing, he expected to meet Elisha and to get a show. Instead he’s given a seemingly mundane task, get yourself dunked in this water. Naaman is about to return home when his wiser servants ask "if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!" So Naaman washes and is cured.
The fact is that all of us want to get better, all of us want to get clean, but on our own terms. But Christ’s healing is on His terms. His healing brings changes and challenges we aren’t always willing to face.
Are we willing to have our sin exposed? Are we willing to make time to pray and to worship? Are we willing to have our entire lives changed? What if the only way to be healed is by dying to our old selves and becoming someone completely new? Are we willing to lose ourselves in the process of finding Jesus? Are we willing to change what must be changed? Are we willing to submit ourselves to God’s will and God’s plan? Do we want to be healed?
Or do we want to continue to try and fix ourselves? Are we so in love with ourselves that we’d rather be sick and unchanged than well and risk change? Are we so committed to getting our own way that we can’t see where our way is leading us?
Because it's leading us straight to Hell. And not necessarily like we think. Christians talk a lot about Hell as the eternal consequence of sin and people start to get the idea of God as one who enjoys sending people to Hell. But God doesn’t want us to burn in hell, He wants to burn the hell out of us.
But we don’t like things that burn. We don’t like how much it hurts sometimes to be healed. When faced with a sort of spiritual chemotherapy, we’ll keep our cancer. The fact is that it is destroying us in such slow and subtle ways that we've almost stopped noticing. And we don't like what comes with getting well. We don’t like the embarrassment or submission or the loss of pride. We don’t want to lose ourselves. We’ve come to enjoy a certain lifestyle and we don’t want it challenged or changed; we don’t want to be uncomfortable or inconvenienced. Or we just don’t want to be honest. We don’t want to be exposed. We don’t want to get real. We don’t want to get well.
Because the first step in getting well is getting real. Giving voice to our demons is the only way to have them cast out. The folks in AA understand this and we must understand it too; that the first step is admitting that we are powerless over our own sin. And the next is acknowledging that God is not. And the next is to make a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves and our sin. And the next is to ask God to remove that sin. And the next is to do whatever God deems necessary to get well and to be healed.
Christ’s question confronts us as we seek to follow Christ. Do you want to get well? Do you want to be healed?
I'm reminded of a story of a healing that is recorded in the 5th chapter of John's gospel:
Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"
This is the part that strikes me about this story; Jesus asks the man, “Do you want to get well?”
It seems like the stupidest question Jesus could ask. “No," thinks the man, "I sit out at this pool in the hopes of not getting well.” And yet the question is a good one, a great one, an important one. Because the man has gotten used to being the lame man. There’s a certain lifestyle that goes along with it. If Jesus heals him, everything changes. Jesus is, in essence, asking the man, “are you sure you want everything to change?”
Which reminds me of the story, recorded in the Old Testament, of Naman; an army commander with leprosy, who hears from his Hebrew slave about a prophet and healer named Elisha. Naaman goes to Elisha to be healed and is told by Elisha’s messenger to wash seven times in the Jordan river. But Naaman has his own ideas about healing, he expected to meet Elisha and to get a show. Instead he’s given a seemingly mundane task, get yourself dunked in this water. Naaman is about to return home when his wiser servants ask "if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!" So Naaman washes and is cured.
The fact is that all of us want to get better, all of us want to get clean, but on our own terms. But Christ’s healing is on His terms. His healing brings changes and challenges we aren’t always willing to face.
Are we willing to have our sin exposed? Are we willing to make time to pray and to worship? Are we willing to have our entire lives changed? What if the only way to be healed is by dying to our old selves and becoming someone completely new? Are we willing to lose ourselves in the process of finding Jesus? Are we willing to change what must be changed? Are we willing to submit ourselves to God’s will and God’s plan? Do we want to be healed?
Or do we want to continue to try and fix ourselves? Are we so in love with ourselves that we’d rather be sick and unchanged than well and risk change? Are we so committed to getting our own way that we can’t see where our way is leading us?
Because it's leading us straight to Hell. And not necessarily like we think. Christians talk a lot about Hell as the eternal consequence of sin and people start to get the idea of God as one who enjoys sending people to Hell. But God doesn’t want us to burn in hell, He wants to burn the hell out of us.
But we don’t like things that burn. We don’t like how much it hurts sometimes to be healed. When faced with a sort of spiritual chemotherapy, we’ll keep our cancer. The fact is that it is destroying us in such slow and subtle ways that we've almost stopped noticing. And we don't like what comes with getting well. We don’t like the embarrassment or submission or the loss of pride. We don’t want to lose ourselves. We’ve come to enjoy a certain lifestyle and we don’t want it challenged or changed; we don’t want to be uncomfortable or inconvenienced. Or we just don’t want to be honest. We don’t want to be exposed. We don’t want to get real. We don’t want to get well.
Because the first step in getting well is getting real. Giving voice to our demons is the only way to have them cast out. The folks in AA understand this and we must understand it too; that the first step is admitting that we are powerless over our own sin. And the next is acknowledging that God is not. And the next is to make a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves and our sin. And the next is to ask God to remove that sin. And the next is to do whatever God deems necessary to get well and to be healed.
Christ’s question confronts us as we seek to follow Christ. Do you want to get well? Do you want to be healed?
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