The Spirit Helps Us In Our Weakness

Romans 8: 18-27                                                                                  Nancy Willet

Bethany Presbyterian Church, Dallas                                             March 13, 2005

Shalom. Most of us have heard this Hebrew word before. Shalom is one of those words that can be translated many different ways. It can be used as a greeting in wishing someone well—it is a synonym for peace, and also for health and well-being. Shalom means wholeness. Physical, emotional, and spiritual wholeness. Shalom means wholeness in our world, in our communities an in our homes. Shalom means wholeness in our bodies, minds, and souls.

The peace that comes from wholeness has its source in the mind and body. I was reading recently about a doctor, Dr. Paul Brand who lives and works in India specializing in the treatment of leprosy and reconstructive surgery for healed leprosy patients. He said he used to believe the body and soul were two separate entities, with the need to be treated separately. "Let the pastors in the churches take care of the souls, and I and the rest of the hospital staff will take care of their bodies," Dr. Brand said. However, he went on to write about how now he, like many other healthcare professionals and clergy people have come to believe there is a strong connection between bodily sickness and the mind and spirit. A connection exists between soul sickness and physical well-being. Perfect health—shalom—cannot exist where there is fear or hatred or bitterness in the mind. Shalom does not exist where a body is suffering or hurting.

I am guessing that all us here today have experienced some sort of physical ailment in our lives before. I would also gather to assume that most of us have also experienced some sort of fear, or hatred, or bitterness in our souls before, too. Many of us have experienced the crippling emotions of loss, grief, of sadness, or depression. We are all human—there is no way around these feelings.

Have you ached so badly in your body or soul that you just felt like moaning and groaning? I know I have. The apostle Paul also speaks about groaning in the Scripture passage from Romans we just heard. He said that all of creation has been groaning, and even us—you and I who have received the blessing of God's Spirit groan with our aches, pains, and hurts. We groan in our grief and sadness as we wait for the final redemption of all things.

As we groan and endure sometimes unbelievable pain, we can be reminded also of Paul's words he wrote to the Corinthians when he told them that three times he pleaded with God to take away his pain. But God told him that the grace God gives him was sufficient enough for him, and that God's power was made great through his weakness. ----Think about a minute---God's power is made great through our weaknesses.

You see, God never promised us a life without trouble and pain. But God has promised to be with us through anything and everything we may ever experience. God's Spirit helps us to bear the pain and suffering of our bodies and our souls. The Spirit helps us bear our cross whether it is physical pain, or mental depression, or spiritual conflict, or poverty, or persecution. God's power is made great in our weaknesses.

One of my favorite passages in the New Testament, I believe is verse 26 and 27 that speaks about our weaknesses.  Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

For many, prayer is a great outlet for grief. We bathe our wounds and hurting souls in the lotion of prayer, and the pain is lulled, the fever is removed. But what about those times when the healing balm of prayer runs dry on our lips? What about those times when a prayer cannot even be uttered?

Paul tells us that the Spirit will come to our rescue. God's Spirit won't take our pain away, but the Spirit will enable us to bear that pain. The Spirit draws near and helps us to pray. The Spirit will intercede for us and take over for us; offering to God prayers that speak our hearts' needs and desires—those that are even unknown to us. The Spirit prays with sighs too deep, too profound to even be labeled with mere human words.

 Have you ever experienced a time when all you could manage was a groan too deep for words? A groan comes not from the lips, but from the heart. A groan is a prayer that comes from the Holy Spirit within each of us—a prayer that wells us from the innermost part of our beings. It is the prayer that only God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, could pray.

In addition to always having God's Spirit to pray with us and for us, the Spirit is also at work in our Christian community. Many times in our pain it is very easy to become emotionally isolated. It is much easier to keep our pain to ourselves than to share with a friend or family member or Christian brother or sister. But remember what our real purpose for living is: our first task is to love God with all our heart and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

When we emotionally isolate ourselves from our neighbors, we disallow the community to fulfill Jesus' commandment. Jesus not only calls us to cast our burdens upon him—but he also calls us to take one another's burdens and lighten one another's loads.

How do we lighten another's load? We are called to pray for our neighbor, our brother or sister in Christ. We are called to pray for others especially when they are unable to pray for themselves. You see, I believe God's Spirit not only helps each one of us pray when we are not able, but also the Spirit lives and works through the Christian community. God gave God's Spirit as a gift to the church to be present, to intercede for us when we are unable.

In our Presbyterian Book of Common Worship, is a service for Wholeness from which we have taken our liturgy today. Over the last several decades, Protestant churches have begun to take more seriously the need for the church to be involved not only with the spiritual well-being of its members, but also the physical well-being too.

In a few moments you will be invited to come forward to be anointed with oil as a sign of healing and forgiveness, and as a sign of the fullness of life—the shalom that God intends for us all.

Oil used for anointing has had a long history throughout the biblical stories. In the Old Testament, kings were anointed at their coronations. The anointing signified royalty or divine strength. An anointed person was a favored person of God.

In the New Testament, we also find anointing stories. In the 6th chapter of Mark, Jesus sends out the 12 apostles to anoint the sick with oil and cure them. In the Letter of James, the author instructs the elders of the church to anoint the sick with oil and pray for them.

I would like to point out at this time, however, that the act of anointing holds no special or magical power. The oil that Todd and I will use to anoint your forehead is ordinary oil. Your anointing today is symbolic of God's desire for wholeness in both your spiritual and physical bodies that God created. The oil is symbolic of the blessing that God bestows upon each of us as full and participating members of God's family.

What a privilege it is to be a part of this Christian community. What a privilege it is for each one of us to be a part of each other's prayer life. What a privilege it is for God's Spirit to intercede for us and pray to God with sighs too deep for words. What a privilege it is to be a living creation of our Loving God. I pray for shalom for each of you.

Amen.