What is it to carry a secret about your own body that you cannot quite put down? It is a weight in the mind, and a weight that does not grow lighter with the hours. You wake and the thought is already there, waiting. You lie down and it lies down with you. A lump, a swelling, a hard question beneath the skin, and with it, a thousand fears one cannot even name. I think I see you holding this trouble in the palm of your hand, turning it over and over, and wondering how it will end. I want to sit with you here a little while and speak of the One who bears away not only sin, but every sorrow that sin has brought into the world.
The Lord Jesus never turned away anyone who came to Him with a sick body. You remember the woman who was bent double and could not lift herself up. Eighteen years she had looked only at the ground, and not at the faces of others or the brightness of the sky. And yet she came to the synagogue, because Christ was there. I do not know whether your body feels whole or broken this morning, but I do know that the same Jesus who called her to Himself and laid His hands upon her and made her straight stands ready to receive you. His heart is as tender now as it was then. His power has not dimmed with the ages. He knows exactly what that lump is, and what it is not. He knows the fear that comes with it as well as the thing itself. Nothing about you is hidden from Him, and nothing about you is indifferent to Him.
You say the lump must be cured, but perhaps the heaviest part is not the body at all. It is the mind, fretting over what might be. That is the care the Apostle tells us to cast upon God, because He cares for us. Do not think you must untangle the knot before you bring it to Him. You cannot. The very act of casting means that you open your hand and let it fall into His. The alchemists long ago tried to turn common metal into gold, and they failed. But you, by a holy skill, may take this anxiety, raw and heavy as it is, and turn it into prayer. Every time the fear knocks, let it become a petition. When you lie awake, let those wakeful minutes be filled with quiet breathing out of the soul to the One who neither slumbers nor sleeps. You are not murmuring at the dark; you are holding your Father’s hand in the dark. There is all the difference in the world.
I have seen a love letter that came in an envelope edged with black. The paper within was written by a hand long beloved, and the sorrow of the border only made the love inside more precious. Your trial now is like that black-edged envelope. Do not be afraid to open it. Inside is a fresh discovery of the patience of Christ, the nearness of Christ, the sympathy of Christ. Perhaps you have known His pardoning love a long time. Now He would have you know His healing love as well, and His keeping love. To those who are brought low He appears most glorious. When the physician’s word trembles, His word stands firm. When the signs in the body threaten, His promise breathes peace. He heals, and He will heal. Whether by a touch that makes the lump dissolve, or by guiding the hands of those who treat you, or by giving you such a quiet spirit that the trouble itself loses its sting, in any case, you are not at the mercy of chance. You are not a twig upon a flood. You belong to Him, body and soul.
Have you forgotten, dear hearer, the miracles He has already done for you? Has He not brought you through waters deep enough before? Have you no Ebenezers to look back upon, no stones of help set up along the path? Consider the miracle of the loaves as it has already played out in your own history. The need that looked impossible, and yet He supplied it. The weakness that seemed permanent, and yet He strengthened you. The night of weeping, and the joy that came with the morning. He who was enough then is enough now. He does not fade. He does not forget. His stores are not wearied by your drawing upon them.
And there is a Tree of Life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. I think that tree casts its shadow even now across the fevered places of this life. Its leaves are not far off. The healing virtue that flows from Christ is not locked away in heaven until we die. It reaches down into time, into these clay houses of ours. The prayer of faith is a hand stretched out to pluck a leaf and press it to the wound. Do it again. Do it now. Do it as often as the anxiety returns. You are not bound to be careful for anything, but you are privileged to be prayerful for everything. Lay this request before Him with thanksgiving, thanksgiving that you have a High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of your infirmity, thanksgiving that you are not alone, thanksgiving that the outcome is already held in His pierced hands.
Shall we pray?
Lord Jesus, You who touched the leper and the blind and the woman with the issue of blood, look down upon this Your child whose body is troubled with a lump. You know the name of this affliction before any doctor can pronounce it. You know its cause and its cure. We ask You, in the tenderness that moved You to weep at Lazarus’s tomb, to let healing flow. If it pleases You, dissolve the lump and make the flesh whole, so that the sufferer may tell of Your goodness. But whatever You choose to do with the body, will You not keep the soul in perfect peace? Still the clamor of fear. Lift the weight of anxious thought. Give sleep at night and courage for the day. And let this trial become an altar where the soul meets with You and finds You nearer than ever before. We ask this humbly, boldly, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.