Today's gospel reading from Mark has at the center the Marcan "Temple Cleansing". That incident is sandwiched by the cursed and then withering fig tree. And it concludes with some encouragement about prayer. The nature of prayer has been on my mind.
I admit to some real confusion about prayer. As a hospital chaplain I am close to many patients and families whose prayers are not answered. Just last week there was a minister's wife who had been keeping vigil bedside of her husband. She recounted his many selfless works and his missionary life. "If God doesn't heal him, I simply don't get it." This complaint against God comes often. And yet, for the most part, it is shouted in psalmist style…in other words, without calling God an "outright fraud."
But in today's reading Jesus says "Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours." As the one not experiencing the grief of losing a husband, I have the luxury of pondering what kind of healing God might have in mind for his dedicated servant. Sometimes I wonder if most of us get too comfortable at the foot of the cross where our pain and suffering are so intense and real. But Easter is on the other side...we have to go through it. And going through involves work and change and overcoming fear.
Often I am gifted with meeting family members long after their loved one has died in the hospital. And having gone through that cross, they can then see, in retrospect…always in retrospect…the grace therein. May the witness of their real wrestling with and searching for the presence of God build up my faith. And, at my next cross, may that strengthened faith support me in the darkness of the "going through." Amen.
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