Jesus In Your Shoes ~ Hebrews 2:14-18 ~ Liturgy for Healing

Photo courtesy of goldsaint / freedigitalphotos.net

During our final year of seminary, Elizabeth took a job as a dietary aide at a hospital.  When she was hired, the hospital was launching a “concierge” meal service, which allowed patients to order whatever food they wanted, whenever they wanted it—and have it delivered like room service.  If you wanted a burger and fries for breakfast, they’d make it for you! 

But this idea of “concierge meal service” is part of a recent trend in hospitals to make patients feel less like they’re in the hospital and more like they’re staying a nice hotel, which isn’t a bad thing!  If you’re laid up sick, sometimes the best medicine is your favorite food!

But there’s no concierge in the world that can take an illness away.

When you’re diagnosed with a serious illness, or a loved one dies, everything in your world is affected.  There’s no sense of normalcy anymore—except the pain.  This awful thing busts into your life without your permission.  It assaults you in your weakest and most vulnerable moments.  Life becomes a day-to-day struggle to wrestle your existence back from the pain, and press on against that which is constantly dragging you down.

And you feel so alone. 

Nobody knows what it’s like to be walking in your shoes.  Well-meaning people may say they understand, but they don’t.  The one-liners and clichés don’t help either.  “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”  Those aren’t encouraging words!  They only make you feel guilty when your strength is failing and you wonder how you’re going to go on…

But listen to what the Bible says:

“Because Jesus himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”

Nobody knows the trouble you’ve seen; but Jesus does. 

Truth is, Jesus, even though he was without sin, experienced every possible human experience of pain.  He was born in dire poverty.  He was homeless.  He had family troubles (at one point, his own family said “he’s out of his mind!”)  He knew hunger; he knew isolation; he knew temptation; he knew grief.  He was betrayed by one of his own disciples. And the rest ran away so that he died alone. 

Jesus was crucified in a place called “the Skull…”  Think about that—the worst place in the world, where he died the worst possible death there could be.  At the cross, all the forces of evil were nailed into his feet, hands, and side. 

This means that no matter what you’re going through, Jesus has walked in your shoes.  He knows what it’s like.   But Jesus gives you more than just his sympathy.

At your baptism, you are baptized into Jesus—but Jesus is also baptized into you.  He is born into you and lives within you through faith.  Jesus walks in your shoes. 

What for?  To listen to your prayers and intercede to his Father on your behalf.  To give you strength to withstand the assaults and temptations of the devil.  To liberate you from the power of fear and doubt…  To cleanse you of your sin and make you new, every day. 

Because Jesus lives in you, the Father looks after and takes care of you as he does his Son. 

So when sickness, death, and the troubles of strike and you suffer a direct hit, you will endure because Jesus endured the cross.  When you stand at death’s door, and we all will, Jesus will walk through it with you—and one day, you’re going to walk right out of the tomb to life everlasting.

Jesus walks in your shoes.

Today, we are calling forth the living Christ to reveal himself to us and to those for whom we come before him as intercessors.  With Jesus crucified and resurrected, living and loving both by day and night, we are not going to surrender to hopelessness and helplessness.  We are calling Christ to come alive through our prayers; through the laying on of hands; through our words and deeds of compassion and mercy.

We can’t raise the dead or knock illnesses out of people like they do on TV—but that does not mean that we do not possess gifts of healing.  It all begins in prayer: we intercede on behalf of one another—and through that prayer, the Spirit will empower us to words and actions that accomplish God’s healing!  Prayer happens to be one of the best things you can do for someone—and its power is multiplied when two or more gather and pray together. 

Jesus is walking in all our shoes—but because we are a church, our own shoes are not the only ones we’re going to see.  We’re going to see a whole myriad of shoes on the feet of the ones who bring the love and compassion of our Lord Jesus.