I am sure many of you are familiar with places like Lourdes (in France) and Međjugorje (in Bosnia), where millions of people from around the world make pilgrimages each year in hopes of receiving a miracle healing.
Back in 2016, I took a group from my previous church on retreat in New Mexico, and when we were there, we visited a place called Chimayo, which is known as the Lourdes of North America. Each year, over a million people visit Chimayo with the belief that they will be healed.
And when we visited there, we saw literally thousands of crutches and wheelchairs and canes that had been left behind by people who had experienced miraculous healings there.
Our group got to crawl down into a basement room in a small chapel and take some of the soil from the ground.
The soil there is said to be sacred, and people who have rubbed the dirt on their bodies or ingested it have claimed to be healed of diseases like cancer.
So, what’s really going on in places like Lourdes and Medjugorje and Chimayo? Are they for real?
Well, I share this with you today, because the gospel reading from today’s lectionary for the 6th Sunday of Easter is all about a man who experiences healing at another miraculous place, the Pool of Bethesda.
Now, you visit the Holy Land today, you’ll see that the Pool of Bethesda no longer exists anymore in its original form, but visitors to the Holy Land can still see the ruins of it, even though water is no longer flowing thru it.
But, in the time of Jesus, the Pool of Bethesda was known to be a “healing pool.”
People who were paralyzed or disabled would come and sit on one of the five porches surrounding the pool, and they would wait for the water to become “stirred up” before stepping into the pool in the hopes of being healed.
It was believed that – once a day – an angel would descend upon the pool and “stir up” the water…and the first person to step into the pool immediately after that stirring would be healed.
That “stirring up” or “troubling” of the water is famously sung about in the refrain of popular African-American spiritual, “Wade in the Water.”
Now, although the Pool of Bethesda no longer exists, there are still places around the world where people go to be healed in the water.
Places like the Ganges River in India, the Dead Sea in Israel, and natural hot springs right here in the U.S.
Many people have entered into these spiritual waters and have experienced healing miracles for themselves.
Throughout the gospels we hear story after story of miracles and healings, most of them attributed to Jesus.
But, as we heard in our “Word of Integration & Guidance” this morning, Jesus never took credit for any of the healing miracles depicted in the gospels.
Never. Not one time. Because it wasn’t all his doing.
It was also up to the person seeking healing and the power of their belief.
We see it time-and-time again in the gospels. For example: to the woman who touched the hem of his garment, Jesus said: “Daughter, your belief has made you whole.” Not “I” have made you whole, but your belief did.
To the blind man, Jesus said, “Go, for your faith has made you well.” Not “I” have made you well, but your faith did.
To the centurion who sought healing for his daughter, Jesus said, “It is done to you according to your belief.” Not “according to my power,” but according to your belief.
With every healing miracle in the Bible, Jesus says the same thing: It’s all about the power of your belief.
Jesus was – first and foremost- a teacher. (That’s why they called him “Rabbi”), and he came to teach us that we could do everything that he did. These things and greater, he said!
Jesus came to teach us how to awaken our inner healer through the power of our belief.
Last year, I spoke with you about writer, Louise Hay, who passed away in 2017. Louise Hay wrote of the best-selling books of all time, a book called, “You Can Heal Your Life.”
“You Can Heal Your Life” was one of the very first books to establish the mind-body-spirit connection.
The key premise of the book is that because our mind, body, and spirit are connected, illnesses of the body somehow have their root causes in the mind, in our beliefs, thoughts and emotions.
Louise Hay believed that the causes of disease (which she spelled “dis-ease”) include things like stress and unhealthy thought patterns and beliefs about oneself. She believed that the most fundamental way to affect positive change in the body is to change the way we think.
Modern medical science has come to discover this and promote this, as well.
Some of you may be familiar with what’s known as the “Placebo Effect.”
That’s where doctors give sick patients a placebo, a “fake” pill. It’s just a sugar pill…but they don’t tell the patient that.
The patient believes they are taking real medicine, medicine that’s going to help them get better…and, guess what? In most cases, they get better!
Because it’s not just about the pill! It’s about all about the power of belief.
Countless scientific studies over the years have proven the power of positive thinking when it comes to our physical healing.
Now, please don’t think that we’re dismissing Western medicine, but we’re not.
We are so fortunate to be living at a time with so many incredible medical breakthroughs and life-saving discoveries…all of which happened, because of doctors and scientists who believed.
That’s what, I think, Jesus was getting at about the power of our belief. That our belief makes us whole; that our faith makes us well.
The man at the Pool of Bethesda believed that he was crippled, and he believed that the only way for a healing to occur was to be the first person to enter the pool after an angel had rippled the water, but he could never get into the water because no one would carry him. And, he’s been holding on to those limited beliefs for 38 years.
So, Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be made well?” Meaning that the man had to take action for his own healing. And, once the man agrees, he is healed, without ever stepping foot in the water.
If you notice in Jesus’ other miracles (the ones that don’t have anything to do with physical healing) people also come to Jesus with beliefs of lack and limitation and fear.
They said things like, “We don’t have enough wine” or “There’s not enough bread and fish to feed everyone” or “Our boat is sinking.”
These people have limiting beliefs, but where they saw the impossible, Jesus saw the possible…so he was able to turn water into wine; multiply the loaves and the fish; calm the sea and walk on water.
Jesus wanted them to know (and Jesus wants us to know) that miracles are possible when we believe.
Now, I know some of you might say: “Pastor Sal, my grandmother was a woman who believed. She was a positive thinker. She had a very strong faith, and yet she still died of cancer.”
Well, my answer to that is: “She may not have been physically cured, but that does not mean that healing did not take place.” There is a difference between curing and healing.
“To cure” means to return to a previous state of being. Healing is about experiencing a new way being. Healing means to “make whole” to “make holy.”
Throughout Jesus’s ministry, many people were cured physically, but many others were healed spiritually.
Jesus told us: “You have been given power and authority to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.” YOU have!
But most of us don’t really believe that. We don’t believe we have the power to heal and to work miracles.
One of the greatest minds of 20th Century, Albert Einstein, who believed that science and spirituality went hand-in-hand, famously said: “There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though NOTHING is a miracle. And the other is as though EVERYTHING is a miracle.”
It’s up to you! It all has to do with your belief.
When you believe (really believe) in the power that is within you, you begin to see miracles all around you, for YOU are the miracle!
And, so, my friends, in these final weeks of the Easter Season (this time of resurrection and new life) let us go forth to look for the good and to see the miracles that are happening all around us.
Let us live our lives as if everything is a miracle.
For (as the song says) there can be miracles when we believe.
May it be so. Amen.