"No woman has ever taken a pregnancy test without saying a prayer—one way or the other." One warm Friday in June, in the village of Nazareth while on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a fellow pastor made this remark about the anxiety that comes from waiting for pee-stick test results.
Remnants of a cave under the Basilica of the Annunciation |
Stained glass window in the Basilica |
We often pray for God to fix things, to get us out of jams by making our difficulties go away. But God's ways of resolving our difficulties—that is, how God heals and reconciles—are different than our ideas about fixing. To fix something means that the problem is removed. But God usually heals instead, and healing still involves the initial pain and memory of the accompanying difficulty. Consider how Jesus's resurrected body still bears the scars of his torture and crucifixion. (See John 20:24-29) Mary still had to bear the risk and shame of carrying a child who was conceived before she was properly married. Thank God that she didn't try to "fix" the problem of her pregnancy.
Everything that God touches in creation is troubled—fallen and corrupted by sin. If God were to deal with us by "fixing" everything, then there would be no choice but to dissolve us and make us go away, wiping out all evidence of the mess. But God is greater than that, and God's power is such that it is possible for God's holiness to heal us without wiping us out. In Jesus—both in his birth and his death—we see that God's mighty power to heal means that good can come from trouble. Praise God that none of us have been "fixed."
The well at the bottom of the Church of St. Gabriel |
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