FROM DESOLATION TO DAWN

(Isaiah 35:4-7 and Mark 7:24-37)

What do you think of when I mention the state of Iowa? Probably you think of flat lands and farms, right? That’s what I thought before I moved there too. And yes, the central and western portions of the state are pretty flat, but the eastern portion has some lovely hilly areas. And yes, there are lots and lots of farmlands, growing primarily corn and soy beans. After five years there I learned what the phrase “knee high by the fourth of July,” meant. I learned that they’re the number one producer of pork in the country. I also learned that the population is more racially and culturally diverse than what I thought. I imagined a largely white and rural population and they are certainly there, but – there is an increasing Hispanic population- as is true in most parts of the country. But did you know that Iowa, Central Iowa in particular, is the largest Sudanese resettlement area in the country? It’s true. I heard many stories of the “lost boys” – Sudanese children whose parents had been killed who traveled together hundreds of miles, under constant threat of life, to find safety, to find someone who would take care of them, and give them a new life.

Lately we’ve heard more in the news of the violence in the Darfur region. The Sudanese in Iowa are a dispersed people. They are cut off from their homes and everything they ever knew. I can only imagine what that would be like. I think it’s not dissimilar to the plight of the Hebrew people during their dispersion written about in Isaiah.

It is widely held among Biblical scholars that the writings of Isaiah are in three parts, by three different authors – the first portion writing of the impending invasion of the Assyrians, the second portion writing of the conquering Babylonians, and the third portion written during the time of the Persian invasion. It’s also divided loosely into three parts consisting of – dispersion, desolation, and restoration.

To be honest, I’m not sure it really matters whether it was one author writing about one historical period of dispersion or three. I think the experience is the same. They are a people who have been cut off, from their land, their home, their places of worship, their culture – they must feel lost, helpless, without identity, questioning their place in the world, maybe even their faith. But amidst this brokenness Isaiah writes in our passage today of two assurances – one is that God doesn’t leave you in your desolation. You’re not immune to it, but God is with you and will not leave you. The second assurance is that there is reason for hope. The future will bring fulfilled promises of healing – of restoration and newness. Isaiah give the people words of hope – while wandering through the dry hot dessert, while broken and desolation – there will be a dawn. God alone can bring healing and renewal.

Will that mean that they are returned to a carbon copy of how things were in the “good old days?” Maybe, maybe not. More often than not, healing and renewal bring change with them. I think of those Sudanese boys in Iowa. Will they ever return to their homeland? Perhaps, but their parents won’t be there. It won’t be like it was before. Maybe healing for them will be to form a new identity, a new home and to find their belonging and happiness right there in central Iowa.

God’s healing power comes in all sorts of ways. We see that evidenced in our passage from Mark, where Jesus heals two people – the Syro-Phoenician woman’s daughter, and the man who was deaf. I don’t want to dwell on the conversation between Jesus and the woman too much. The use of the imagery of her or her daughter being like a dog can be off-putting and confusing, and distract us from what I think is more important to notice – one, the woman’s faith and persistence. She was a gentile, and outsider, unclean according to the Jews. She knew she wouldn’t be warmly received, asked to sit down and have dinner with them. Yet, she believed in God’s healing power enough to sacrifice her own potential humiliation to bring wellness for her daughter.

She asks Jesus for help. He tests her by their little tet a tet, and her persistence shows him that she believes. So he finally says, Ok, go home, your daughter is well. And the woman believes, trusts, and departs. And she finds out that God has in fact healed her daughter.

We see the second scene where the deaf man is brought for healing and Jesus puts his hands over his ears, spits on him and then he is healed. One healing that is incomprehensible and one that seems a little gross when we think about it. But God heals within God’s will and God’s way.

I have a friend back in Iowa whose teenage daughter was severely injured in a car accident. We’ll call my friend Elle and her daughter Dee. As a result of that accident, Dee became a quadriplegic. Elle and her husband had to remodel their homes and their lives to take care of her. For years, her care and needs were the center of their lives. For years, Dee not only suffered from the physical complications that come from being a quadriplegic, but she also suffered from deep depression. For years, Elle prayed that her daughter would be healed.

Some time in her 20’s, Dee had a counselor that advised that she move out of her parents home, and into an assisted living community in the next state where she could be near the medical care that she needed, but that she could also learn to be more responsible for herself, to care for her own needs and become an adult. With a little fear and trepidation, she did. She moved to Rochester, Minnesota. She made some friends that became not only friends, but sisters in faith. She experienced a re-birth of her own identity and of her faith and her relationship with Christ. Later she met a man, fell in love and got married. One day, during her prayers, Elle was once again praying for Dee’s healing – and she tells me she audibly heard God’s voice say to her, “she is healed.” What Elle hadn’t recognized was that her daughter was spiritually whole, in healthy relationships, and actually quite happy. Her daughter was healed. Can she walk? No. Healing was from God but looked quite different from the picture that Elle had formed in her mind. But hearing that voice and seeing her daughter as a healthy grown woman – she was at peace. She too was healed from her pain over her daughter’s accident.

We don’t always know how or when or where healing will come, but our scriptures today teach us to trust that God can and does heal. We are taught to persist in prayer, not to give up or quit our relationship with God because it isn’t done our way. As a people, a faith community, we may go through times of brokenness. As individuals, we also experience need for healing – physical, spiritual. And God knows our needs, better than we.

Wednesday night I was watching Primetime Medical Mysteries. I don’t know if any of you watch that. I find it interesting and I like the section where they present a case and let you try to diagnose it at home. One of the sections last Wednesday was on a little known genetic abnormality called “face blindness”. One of the women that they interviewed told her story of how for years she lived with this, not knowing what it was – and how she was often embarrassed, humiliated, worried that she was going crazy or already was. But then when she finally found the right doctor who diagnosed her and helped her understand why she couldn’t recognize faces, she felt a sense of renewal of hope. Toward the end of the interview she even said that if someone offered her a “cure” she’d probably turn it down. Her healing was knowing and understanding and being comfortable with herself. She could even articulate a blessing that came from her condition.

God knows our needs, God cares, and God heals. We don’t always know what that will look like, but we have to trust that it will be what it needs to be.

Native American writer and preacher, Ray Buckley, tells the story of a little bird. Her name was She who flies swiftly. She flew gracefully among the trees in the wood.. One morning, however, She who flies swiftly was found lying on the ground. The Creator lifted her up and found a broken bone in one of her small wings. Gently, the Creator touched the wing, and placed She who flies swiftly under the Great Tree.

Everyone trusted that she would fly again, having been touched by the Creator, but days passed, and She who flies swiftly could not fly at all. The others wondered why. “Perhaps she has offended the Creator! Perhaps she was never really touched by the Creator at all.” Days passed; the other creatures eventually stopped coming by, and She who flies swiftly sank into herself, crying out to the Creator for help, but she heard no answer.

“Perhaps I should ask more quietly,” and from her broken wing and broken heart came notes of pleading…notes of sadness…notes of incredible beauty; She had begun to sing. In time, the music was not always sad; It was nearly joyous. And when it seemed the music could not be more lovely, another voice melted into harmony with the small, broken creature. It was the Creator! And to this day, a song of hope can be heard in a voice formed by a broken wing, sung by She who has been healed.

Our lives don’t always go the way we would imagine them too. Sometimes events shatter us and we feel broken and lost. Yet each event in our lives comes together to form the mosaic of our lives. We are who we are because of where we’ve been, what we’ve seen and experienced. In our own moments of sadness and brokenness, we cry out to the creator. Let us trust God and place our healing in his hands. It may come on a different schedule than ours. It may take a form that we hadn’t imagined. But we can know - we will be God’s – and we will be whole again.