Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5:13-16 – New International Version (NIV)
Today I began to look at this passage through different eyes. My memorization of the book of James has brought me to this passage at this time and, I believe, for what I am to glean from it today as I search for answers that questions that have arisen in the last week. Here’s my 30,000ft take.
Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray.
Seem like a no brainer, but how often is prayer my last resort? Pretty clear from the context it should be my first response.
Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.
This is not new, throughout scripture I am encouraged to praise; to taste and see that the Lord is good. What other response could there be as I look at each and every blessing. As the old hymn goes – count your many blessings name them one by one. This exercise alone puts so much into perspective.
Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.
Isn’t sickness at its root a form of pain? We can be physically ill or our soul could be in anguish and pain. The solution: have the leaders pray over you and anoint (symbology to call out for the Lord’s blessing) you. Might this take the form of leading you in prayer rather than simply praying for you?
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
So often I have looked at this verse without examining the “therefore.” Confess our sins to each other “so that” I may be healed. My sins can keep me from being healed. Nothing new here except that recently I’ve been challenged to consider sins committed against me which in turn caused me to sin in response to my pain. As I said, my newness of thinking comes from “therefore.”
In the context of sickness (in its various forms), if someone were praying for me – leading me in intercession – might I experience greater healing? I know that if I commit a list of offenses in my marriage to give my wife a blanket “I’m sorry” does not carry nearly the weight of my articulating the specifics offense(s). If someone were guiding my thoughts to the specific “crimes” for my mental discipline (as they concurrently prayed for my healing) wouldn’t this lead to better accountability and understanding? Therefore as I forgive (or asked for the forgiveness of) each offense it has specific personal meaning and isn’t a blanket “I sorry” or “that’s ok.”
And this moves me into the confession of sins. What is the context of this confession? Am I truly articulating a confession by glossing over it? Or is visiting the sin, looking at it full in the face what is needed to fully comprehend it?
The implication is that no confession leads to no healing. What is righteousness? What is it that makes prayer effective?
Might we, as Christians, have lost something of the meaning of this passage? Might we have lost a greater understanding of physical processes required to keeping that computer in our skull operating the way it was intended?
Personally, I do not feel this is always required as a path to healing but what about those things I get stuck in? What about something so apparently innocent as anger at the driver in front of me cutting me or others off? What I do with that situation time and time again may be a rut of its own.
