All Things Are Possible
by Dr. Graham Standish
John 11:1-16, 32-44
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’ After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’
Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’ When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?...’
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’
What do you think? Was it possible for Jesus to raise a dead guy? Many people would say no, but if the answer is no, then what is the line between what is and isn’t possible in life? No one ever defines it, unless they are saying that the only things that are possible are those things that comply to the known laws of physics. But the funny thing about that about the known laws of physics is that they keep changing. So was it possible for Jesus to break the known laws of physics?
What’s possible and not possible? And if we declare events like this one to be impossible, then what are we to make of an experience a friend of mine had years ago? I met Terry when I was working as an associate pastor. She had moved to the Murrysville area from Wisconsin. Like me she had a master in social work and had worked as a therapist. She also was a woman who wanted nothing more than to be a mother. All her life she wanted to raise children, but because of a disease she caught early in her adulthood, she only had one healthy ovary on the right side of her body and one healthy fallopian tube on the other. If you know anything about biology, you know that there is no way that an egg can travel across the body cavity to the other side. Her only option was in vitro fertilization, especially since her husband was against adopting children.
Tracy went through a number of treatments over the years at a cost of thousands of dollars. Every single one of them was a failure. Eventually, the doctors told her that nothing would work and that she had to face the facts that she just wasn’t going to get pregnant and have children. This devastated Tracy. She didn’t know what to do. She struggled through her disappointment. She and I had prayed for her to able to have children, but nothing seemed to work. After the decision to end the treatments, she just didn’t talk much about having children.
Then one day she walked into my office with a big ear-to-ear grin. I asked her what had happened, and she said, “I’m two months pregnant!” I said to her, “But I thought you quit the in vitros.” She said, “I did. This was a natural pregnancy.” I then asked her what had happened. This is the part that continues to inspire me.
She told me that about two-and-a-half months earlier she was going through a funk of depression over the failures of the in vitro treatments, and she was crying. She kept wondering why God wouldn’t let her have children. As she wondered this, she prayed, “Lord, you know how much I want to be a mother. You know how much I’ve wanted this my whole life. It doesn’t look like it is going to happen, and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it. So, Lord, I give you my life. If it is your will that I become a mother, I will become the best mother I can be. If not, I will serve you the best I can in whatever I do. All I want to do is to be yours, so I will follow you and serve you whatever you do.” Two weeks later she was pregnant.
Terry said that she was convinced that she became pregnant because she had surrendered to God. Her miracle happened because of her surrender. Seven months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Two years later, she gave birth to another healthy baby boy.
So, was her experience possible, because it defied the laws of physics. I suppose the impossible can happen, and perhaps an egg somehow naturally found it’s way across the body cavity to the fallopian tube, but what is the likelihood of this happening, especially when doctors told her that things like this couldn’t happen.
What’s the line between what is and isn’t possible? Would you say that Rita Klaus crossed that line? For many years, Rita, who until recently lived in Cranberry Township, suffered from multiple sclerosis. She first noticed symptoms of the illness when she was a sister in a Roman Catholic order. She started to have strange sensations, such as periodically losing her sight, and numbness in her legs.
After undergoing a series of medical tests, the doctors came back with a frightening diagnosis: multiple sclerosis. Over the years, the symptoms gradually worsened, so much so that it interfered with her ability to remain a nun. She eventually left the convent and moved to Mars, Pennsylvania, becoming a teacher in the local public school system. For a while, her symptoms abated and she managed to live a relatively normal life.
Over the years Rita married and had children. Then her MS came back with a vengeance, eventually confining her to leg braces. As her symptoms increased, so did her bitterness as she sunk deeper into a pit of despair. Her despair crippled her faith to the point that God no longer mattered to her.
In the midst of her darkness, a light shined. A friend of hers, Marianne, who worked at St. Gregory’s School here in Zelienople, called one day and said, “Rita? Listen, there’s going to be a healing service over at St. Ferdinand’s next Wednesday evening—want to come?” Rita scoffed at her. “I’m a scientist. I don’t believe in healing; that stuff happened 2000 years ago… It’s a bunch of fakes!”
Marianne persisted and finally convinced Rita to come to the service. The service was on a Wednesday evening, and by the time they got there it was packed. The only seat available was in the front, which is exactly where Rita did not want to sit. An usher grabbed her and pulled her down the aisle, and placed her in a pew near the front. During the first hymn, everyone stood up to sing. Rita did too, but the metal of her braces slid on the floor, and she slowly started to slide under the pew in front of her. The people around her grabbed her and held her up. A person next to her held the hymnal in front of her face. She was humiliated and now the center of attention.
As the priests processed by, she heard a loud whisper from a priest behind her, saying “Wait, wait!” The procession stopped, turned around, and laid their hands on her and prayed. Then, something incredible happened. Suddenly she felt as though an ocean of peace was inundating her. This peace lasted for the rest of the evening, and it changed her whole outlook on life. She was a changed and transformed person. All the anger, bitterness, and despair had evaporated, and in its place were gratitude, love, and peace from God.
Rita had experienced a spiritual healing, yet her MS remained. Why would God heal her spiritually, but not physically? Rita didn’t ask this question. In fact, this spiritual healing was infinitely more important to her than any physical healing could have been. She told me, back when she spoke here at Calvin Church in 1997, that given the choice between a physical healing and a spiritual one, she would take the spiritual one every time. It allowed her to plunge back into life with faith, hope, love, and purpose.
Still, over the next few years her body declined even more. On the inside she felt a great sense of peace and harmony, but on the outside her body was slowly deteriorating. Eventually, she was forced into a wheelchair. She prayed to God, but surprisingly not for healing. Instead, she prayed for God’s grace to sustain her. Over the next few years, Rita devoted herself to Christ. She immersed herself in a variety of spiritual disciplines and practices, often in the hope that they would lead to physical healing. She took courses in scripture and theology at a local college. Still no physical healing.
One night, she went to bed and, as was her custom, spent quiet time with God. She had been doing this for the three years since her spiritual healing. She was praying the rosary when she heard a voice: “Why don’t you ask?” She looked around the room but could see no one. The television and radio were off, so the voice did not come from there. She knew in her heart that the voice was real. It was a gentle, almost pleading voice. She wondered what it was that she was supposed to ask for, and suddenly it came to her: she was to ask for healing. This was something she had never asked for. She had prayed about many things in the past, but not specifically for her own healing. The following words formed in her heart and came out of her mouth: “Mary, my mother, Queen of Peace,… please ask your Son to heal me in any way I need to be healed. I know your Son has said that if you have faith, and say to the mountains: move, that they will move. I believe. Please help my unbelief.”
She then fell asleep. The next morning she woke up, forgetting her experience from the night before. She had to hurry because she had overslept and was late for a class she was taking at LaRoche College. She drove herself in her specially equipped van. During the class something strange happened. It felt as though heat was surging from her feet through her legs, and across her whole body. She felt itchy all over, especially in her legs. Her toes were moving inside her shoes, which is something that hadn’t happened in years. She scratched her leg and could feel her fingernails. This was something she hadn’t felt so completely in years.
Driving home afterwards she pulled into her driveway and felt another sensation she hadn’t felt in years. She had to go to the bathroom. She stopped the van and hurriedly dragged her braced body, using her crutches, out of the door and onto the driveway. The braces locked in place, and she scissor-stepped across the driveway to the front door. In the bathroom, she unlocked her brace and looked down at her leg. For years her one leg had grown progressively shorter than the other as the kneecap moved to the inside of her knee. Now it was completely normal. She quickly took off her braces. Remembering the prayer from the night before, she thought to herself that if she was healed she should be able to walk up the stairs. With that, she launched up the stairs with a bound. She reached the top, let out a yelp of joy, and ran down them, out the front door, and into the driveway. She had been healed.
Since that day in 1986, Rita has never had a recurrence of her MS—even of minor symptoms. She travels the world over to tell others her story and also about God’s love. If you are interested in reading about Rita’s experiences, she published them in a book, Rita’s Story, by Paraclete Press.
So, was she really healed by God, or was it just some sort of coincidental event? Perhaps it was just some sort of spontaneous remission, although what do you do with all of the other things that she experienced—the feelings of peace, calm, and of spiritual healing? If you’re not sure what to do with this story, what would you make of Don Piper’s story.
Don Piper is a Baptist pastor who had an experience of healing and more in 1989. Piper had been at a large annual conference for Baptist pastors in Texas, hearing inspiring preachers and teachers. At its end he had two choices about which way to drive home. He could go right out of the Trinity Pines Conference Center, or left. Since he had always taken the left route, which was an eastern route driving down Highway 59, he decided to take a right, heading west down I-45. That decision changed the whole course of his life.
He hadn’t driven more than five miles when disaster hit. Driving along a narrow road with no shoulders, he looked in horror as an 18-wheeler tractor-trailer crossed the center line and headed right for him. The truck ran right over his car, then careened off to hit several other cars. Piper and his care were crushed. Within minutes fire engines, ambulances, and police cars were at the scene. They checked on everyone, and most of the victims suffered only minor injuries. Don Piper, on the other hand, was not okay. He was declared dead by the paramedics on the scene. He had no pulse, no signs of life at all. They checked him numerous times, but each time it was apparent that he was dead.
A massive traffic jam piled up behind the accident, and another pastor from the conference, Dick Onerecker, was in that jam. Wondering what was causing the traffic jam, he walked a half a mile to the scene. Seeing the damage, he went to a police officer and asked if he could help, telling him that he was a pastor. The officer told him that everyone except the man in the crushed car seemed okay. Onerecker, in that moment, felt called to pray for Don Piper, so he asked the trooper if he could. The trooper looked at him and said, “The man’s dead. There’s nothing left to pray for.” Onerecker asked again if he could pray for the dead man. Onerecker wasn’t even sure himself why he felt so compelled to pray for the dead man in the mangled car, but he persisted. The officer said, “Well, you know, if that’s what you want to do, go ahead, but I’ve go to tell you it’s an awful sight. He’s dead, and it’s really a mess under the tarp. Blood and glass are everywhere, and the body’s all mangled.” Dick insisted, so the officer consented.
The car was a mess, and Onerecker had to force his way up through the back of the hatchback. Stretching through the mangled steel as much as possible, he reached out to Don Piper’s body, managing to barely touch his left shoulder, and began to pray for Piper. As he prayed, he sang a number of hymns. This went on for five or ten minutes. As he sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” he heard someone else singing with him. Looking around for someone next to the car, he slowly realized that the voice he heard was Don Piper’s. Piper was alive. Scrambling out of the car, he quickly got the paramedics, who rushed to the scene, used the Jaws of Life to get Piper out, and rushed him to the hospital.
So, for those thirty minutes that Don Piper was apparently dead, what did he experience? According to him, he was taken to heaven. He says that he was dead and in heaven. He felt an incredible sense of peace and joy, and all around him were loved ones who had died before him, hugging him, laughing, and praising God. He saw so many people he had loved, and all were radiant with light. He said that there was no sense of time at all. It also felt more real than any experiences he had ever had in life. He felt absorbed in love. He also sensed God’s presence, although he didn’t see God. Everything was glowing with, as he says, “a dazzling intensity.” Human words couldn’t describe his experiences. He also heard the most amazingly beautiful music he had ever heard, and it seemed to be everywhere, and all of it seemed to be praising God. As he reflected later, “I was home; I was where I belonged. I wanted to be there more than I had ever wanted to be anywhere on earth. Tim had slipped away, and I was simply present in heaven. All worries, anxieties, and concerns vanished. I had no needs, and I felt perfect.”
There’s more to this story, but I’ll let you read it in his book, Thirty Minutes in Heaven. As he seemed ready to stay in heaven, something happened. There was a pause, and in that pause he heard another voice, one definitely not the heavenly ones. It was singing, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” He became conscious in the car, hearing Onerecker singing, and aware that his hand was being held tightly.
It took more than a year for him to recover from the massive injuries he had sustained. He had one more interesting experience about a year later. He met Onerecker’s wife, and he told her how much it helped him to feel her husband’s hand clutching his while lying in the crumpled car. The wife said, “Dick wasn’t holding your hand. He couldn’t have. Think about it. Your hand was under the dashboard, and Dick could barely stretch to touch your shoulder.” Piper replied, “Then whose hand was it?” She smiled and said, “I think you know…”
So, did Don Piper really have this experience? What do we do with these experiences? I suppose we can dismiss them, but if do so we miss something important. We miss the fact that there’s so much more to this world than we can ever understand, so much more to God than we can ever comprehend. But here’s the reality, very little is possible for those with little faith, but for those with faith, all things are possible.
Amen.
