Healing and Cures
“But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”
Malachi 4:2
Trinity Episcopal Church is nestled among the high rises in Boston’s Copley Square. It is a beautiful church with a storied history. Much like St. Martin’s, Trinity is widely known for its preaching. For 18 years, a Southerner, the Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III was the Rector of the parish. He was a gifted storyteller with an accent that seemed so out of place in the Northeast. He could have said anything, and it would’ve sounded important.
While I was in college, I drove down from the North Shore to hear Sam Lloyd preach one Sunday morning. I was struck by the beauty of the nave when I first stepped in, but by the end of the service, I was overcome by one sentence that the gifted preacher said. I made sure to write it on the front cover of the bulletin: “There can always be healing; there can’t always be cures.”
This is so true, and yet when a family member, a friend, or even when we are personally suffering, we desperately long for the cure. How many times have we prayed for a cure and not for the healing? How many times have we staked our faith in God solely on the hope of a cure and bypassed so many moments of spiritual benediction and grace along the way?
This is where our faith’s rubber meets the road. It is never easy, nor do we seek after these dark valleys in life, but even in the depths of pain and grief — with His wounded hands — our Lord offers us His healing. He is the balm of Gilead, or as John said, “The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.”
In June 2017, the Rev. Lloyd was forced to step down as Trinity Church Boston Rector due to a cancer diagnosis. The words he preached became a reality; he could find healing in his Savior but there would be no cure. Surrounded by his family he passed away this past August in Nashville. But fear not, he is now with the Great Physician, and this physician offers not only His healing but Himself to His wounded flock. May we receive His healing on this day and always.
