Dear Friends:

I wandered the streets of Pittsburgh alone one frigid President’s Day. The biggest blizzard in twenty years blended streets, parks and sidewalks into white meadows under cliffs of icy building facades. Because it was a holiday, the streets were not plowed.

Only a bit of traffic scuttled crab-like across the icy intersections. Offices were closed. I had come to the city the night before on the last flight before the storm shut down the airport.

My thoughts made me shiver more than the air temperature. I’d called back to California when I arrived at the hotel at midnight. Patricia told me our son, Andrew, was dangerously ill. I made another call to arrange for an emergency hospital admission. Since then I’d been out of contact with Patricia and Andrew.

I almost hadn’t come on this trip to speak to a group of Christian school administrators. Patricia was struggling with a chronic illness. Work was piled up on my desk. Now our happy, active, tennis-playing boy was ill to the point his own future was in doubt. I was tramping in solitude across a snow-bound city, 3,000 miles from home. My heart was crushed with the weight of fear and a feeling of uselessness.

The department stores were open for President’s Day sales, but in two hours and three stores, I saw only seven other people including sales staff. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt more alone than that chilled, empty morning.

The snow packed and crunched under my feet as I trudged back to the hotel before lunch. I came to a sandwich board sign on the sidewalk across from the steel and glass U.S. Steel Tower on Grant Street. It said, “The Holy Eucharist for Healing, 12:10.” I looked up at an impressive, old, brownstone, neo-Gothic church. It bore another sign, “First Lutheran Church.”

I paused and thought of the two people I love most who so needed healing this day. I had never been in a Lutheran Church in my life. My religious life has been spent in a denomination that claims roots in the Lutheran Reformation, but it is pretty much “our way or the highway” when it comes to worship and communion with Christians of other denominations.

Then there was that “spooky” use of the term ” Eucharist,” a word of Greek origin meaning “gratitude.” It was not in vogue in my sectarian, plain-spoken, rational Protestant heritage which used the word “Communion” to describe going to the Table of the Lord. As for a healing service, my people are more inclined to ask, “Isn’t that why God made hospitals?” Healing prayer for us in practice is most often the ribbon on the package of traditional health care rather than an act of worship.

All of these thoughts tumbled through my mind.

I needed to get back to the hotel, warm up and prepare for my presentations. Yet the thought nagged me that a sign for a healing service on an empty street on a day when my family needed healing could not be a mere coincidence. I looked over the sign and the church portico again before starting on my way.

A call to Patricia told me that Andrew was stabilized. He was being prodded and pricked for tests. She had spent the night beside him in the hospital room. I talked to him and he sounded scared but brave.

By the time I got off the phone and cleaned up it was noon. The conflict about going was resolved in an instant. I pulled on my gloves and big black overcoat so foreign to my Southern California sensibilities and gingerly picked my way back down the slick sidewalks to the First Lutheran Church. Church bells began to intone the service as I approached the steps. The first person I encountered inside was a gray-haired, bearded, bespectacled pastor in a green surplice preparing the sacraments. Another sign said, “The healing service will be in the area of the Baptistry today.”

I slipped into a pew. The sanctuary was dark with beautiful stained glass windows, but to tell you the truth, the setting was a blur to me.

The effort of focusing on Christ through my daze of care and worry was all my tired, distressed mind could bear. I did make out that there were six men and women sitting around me looking a bit worn and frayed. “They must really want something to come down here through the unplowed streets,” I thought.

The pastor began the liturgy of healing. His homily was drawn from Mark 8:11-12: “The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.’And he left them, and getting into the boat again, he went across to the other side.”

“They were looking for a sign,” the pastor said, “for the skies to open and fire to come down, or the earth to open up or something else to dazzle and prove that Jesus was God, and so do we, but we receive no sign of that kind… Perhaps the sign is this — in the midst of what we are going through we see Jesus.”

Tears welled to my eyes, the spray from hope and distress sloshing around together in my soul. Four of the six ragamuffins in the pews went up to the rail and knelt for healing prayer. I was the last in the line. The pastor prayed, “Holy and blessed Trinity, sustain your servants with your presence; drive away sickness of body or spirit; and give them that victory of life and peace which will enable them to serve you now and evermore.”

I begged for the grace of Christ to heal Patricia and Andrew so far away. I would have to stand in this day by representation as husband and father.

The pastor prayed for each person in turn by name, first anointing them with oil on the forehead. When he reached me, he whispered, “What is your name?”

“Kent,” I whispered back.

He laid his hands on my head as my mind sought connection with God and my loved ones.

The pastor waited a long time. His hands were gentle on my head. He prayed for me by name that I would know the healing of Christ for those suffering in the world and in my life.

I returned to my pew. The pastor pronounced a blessing: “The almighty Lord, a strong tower to all who put their trust in him, to whom all things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth bow and whom they obey, be now and evermore your defense, and make you know and feel that the only name under heaven given for health and salvation is the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“The peace of the Lord be with you always, ” he said.

“And also with you.” We greeted each other, “The peace of Christ be with you.”

We prayed thanks and praise to the Lord.

I took the bread of communion, the pastor handing it to each one of us in turn.

Here I was, 3,000 miles from home, in great anguish, snow barring any movement of return. I was powerless to help those I love most. But as we exchanged the peace of Christ with each other, I knew that I was not alone even in gray, slushy Pittsburgh. Comforted with the knowledge that Christ knew and would not forget Patricia and Andrew, I received the post-communion blessing. “The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen you and keep you in his grace. Amen. Go in peace; serve the Lord. ”

I returned quickly out into the cold street, but now warmed and relieved inside.

The next two days are a haze. I made phone calls home and to the hospital, gave my talks. hugged an old friend and shared spiritual blessings of God’s abiding presence with her, conversed with other old friends, all the while confirmed in the grace of the Lord.

On the flight back I read the bulletin that I received at the healing service. On the back was this message:

WELCOME! The Lord has entrusted his people at First Lutheran Church with the opportunity for ministry to downtown Pittsburgh. We count it a privilege to serve those who live and work here. In our ministry we strive to be faithful to the Word of Holy Scripture and the historic Confessions of the Lutheran tradition…The Table before us is the Lord’s. It is not for Lutherans only but for all who desire to receive Christ. All baptized Christians are welcome to receive their Lord in the bread and the wine of the Eucharist. Those who, for any reason, cannot receive the wine are free to receive the Sacrament under the form of bread alone. In doing so, a believer still receives the whole Christ.

Back home, Andrew was diagnosed and stabilized. Patricia’s keen mother’s eyes and intuition made a huge difference in catching the problem and obtaining early medical attention. Andrew is now a happy, healthy adult.

The pastor’s admonition was true. We received no dazzling miracle, no signs and wonders of lightning brilliance. But we recognize Jesus in the midst of our little family, acquainted with our sorrows and afflicted for our sake, and bringing his gifts of love, peace and hope into our conversations of prayer. His mercies to us are renewed every morning. Christ lives with us and in us. The first thing that I do in the morning is talk with him and the last thing that Andrew, Patricia and I do each night is discuss the day’s events with him and go over our plans and concerns for tomorrow to obtain his blessing.

I entered the First Lutheran Church of Pittsburgh in dread and helplessness on a grim Monday noon when the best that humans could do through commerce and technology was paralyzed by the storm. My son was battling a deadly disease a continent away and all I could do was pray and join other believers to pray in the name of Christ.

Prayer and fellowship was exactly what we needed. The few of us that made our way through the snow and ice believed Christ’s word, “If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matt 18:18-20).

The mere fact that the Church cleared the snow off its steps and set out its sign, “Holy Eucharist for Healing. 12:10” proclaims faith in Christ. The gathering of the scruffy little band of believers  gives witness to the power of Christ to “draw all people” to himself. The comfort and peace that I received from Christ in Holy Communion with him and his children in that place and the relief and thankfulness which I carried from that service testifies that it is Christ himself who is our healing, our healer and our health.

The journey home is can be difficult and disillusioning. But along the way, God loves us and prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies of doubt and fear. His faithfulness to us gives us a future and a hope. Patricia, Andrew and I know this and we are most grateful.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Psalm 34:8).
Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.