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Where the Healing Waters Flow—Healing for the Common Man (and Woman!)
By the late 1800’s Hot Springs had a population of over 3,500 people, supporting a yearly pilgrimage of over 50,000 to healing waters bubbling up from the ground and down the rocky mountainsides at a scalding temperature of at least 143 degrees. They’d come here to the waters and bath right out in the open or inside ramshackle cabins. Where they’d bath, they’d name the springs for the ailment they hoped to see cured, “Kidney Springs” and “Liver Springs,” were both cold water springs where bathers hoped to have their kidneys and livers cured. “Alum Springs,” though containing no alum at all was thought to cure poor eyesight. “Egg Springs” was supposedly hot enough to soft boil an egg! They’d dangle their tired and achy feet in steamy water pools which also were named, “Corn Hole Springs” as bathers hoped to see their bunions and corns healed.[i] To this once pristine and hidden landscape came the Common Man and Common Woman, seeking healing.
Harper’s Magazine described our community in early 1878: On an autumn afternoon the long straggling street of the town presents a curious picture. On both sides of the thoroughfare, which is half street and half country road, teeming with the variegated population, are ranged a heterogeneous collection of hotels, doctors’ offices, stores, saloons, etc., while the bathhousesstretch in long rows on the other side of the creek. Here and there are the country wagons drawn by gaunt mules or sleepy oxen passing through the village, halted and bargaining with the hotel or storekeeper for the sale of their load of cotton or produce, or making desperate efforts to get out of the way of the coming horse-cars…and everywhere the hogs, in everybody’s way and under everybody’s feet—hogs, the natural scavengers of the place.[ii] Such was life here in this special place before the coming of yet another body of water, the man-made—Lake Hamilton, miles south of the much more famous bubbling wonders. In 1932, Carpenter Dam was completed across the Ouachita River, creating what has become a bustling 7400 acre lake paradise. To my knowledge, the waters of Lake Hamilton have never been considered “healing waters” like the 47 natural springsjust northward, although the electricity created by the dam and fun and relaxation enjoyed by the vacationers obviously has a healing quality all its own, that’s the healing power of leisure.
Whether it’s the lake or the springs, the important thing is, people come here! On any given Sunday in our 3 worship services numbering 700 to 800 people, some 80 or 95 people come and worship with us as our guests, not as full-fledged or long-term members. Yes, they still come. These waters define us.
And I love living near these waters, lakeside or spring side. It reminds me of an area Jesus lived near and also loved. From my tour bus seat I saw it for the first time in 1993, along with 40 other preaching students from all over the country. The tour bus rounded The Galilee or Tiberius or Gennesaret—all referring to that same fresh body of water some 60 miles north of the Dead Sea, depicted in virtually every Bible Map in the back of just about anyone’s Bible. We slowed to a stop at a lake-side village that reminded me of many of our own lake towns in Arkansas, dedicated to the pursuit of relaxing and fun. Looking around at the pace and environs, I thought to myself, “Jesus really knew how to pick ‘em!” This place seemed like lots of fun. But fun was not what he was seeking that day about which Mark tells this very short story.
No, he was seeking rest and solitude, getting to a place where the crowds weren’t everywhere-the stomachsweren’t so hungry, the sickness and need not so great. Since leaving Jairus’ house (in Chapter 5) Mark records Jesus going quickly here and there; feeding thousands with mere loaves and fishes, teaching his dumbstruck disciples, healing the sick, and calming troubled minds. And, because of such notoriety, the entire Lake District of the Galilee had become dangerous for him. German Catholic scholar, Bargil Pixner, who wrote a fascinating travel-book called With Jesus Through Galilee According to the Fifth Gospel claims, “One gets the impression that Jesus was in a hurry to leave Galilee which was no longer safe—too long a stay in any one place could arouse the suspicion of Herod.”[iii] (pg.75) And, besides that, look what Herod had just done to Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist. Off with his head! (Mark 5:24-29) Yet, no sooner than stepping ashore, with the gravel crunching against the bow of the boat, here come more crowds of people. “They recognized him,” Mark writes—perhaps because of his growing fame; perhaps because of his blue-tasseled robe called “tzitzit” worn by many Jewish males as a requirement of the Torah. [iv]But for whatever reason, here the crowds come again, the common man, the common woman; some walking, some running; some on stretchers made quickly from branches yanked from trees and bound together by mats and quilts.
I don’t know why they didn’t just go to the local hospitals. I don’t know why they didn’t just go to the doctor’s office. I don’t know if healthcare had become a nationwide topic around Galilee like it has around here. I don’t know if their need for healing and wholeness had divided their community. I don’t know any of this. But here’s what I do know.
Even though Jesus yearned for some quiet time and one-on-one time with his disciples, he still met people where they were and went about his work of healing. “It is what it is,” he could have said, and he dealt with the need. I suppose they tumbled off the make-shift mats and pushed away from walking canes and into a new life free from so much pain and suffering. All because Jesus didn’t hide from their need or take a vacation from their sorrows. And he still doesn’t, even to this day in this town or any town. Or, we could say especially here in this town… where the healing waters flow.
I’m not saying I expect to see folks jumping off stretchers and out of ambulances. Nor am I expecting to see instantaneous zapping here and there of the suffering out of their misery, but Jesus is still passing by. Though Hot Springs visitors no longer call the springs by the names of the maladies they hope to see cured, the healing streams still flow. Jesus passes by and the healing waters still flow every time a volunteer physician or nurse signs up with Dr. John Crenshaw or Lynn Blakenship on Arbor Road at the Charitable Christian Medical Clinic. The healing waters keep flowing and Jesus passes by every time Lynn Reeves opens the lock on the front doors of The Caring Place on Quapaw Street and welcomes in volunteers and participants whose lives are full of bewilderment and confusion from the cloudiness of Alzheimer’s. The healer passes by every time Elizabeth Alderman and almost two dozen more Stephen Ministers pick up the phone to make a care giver/receiver appointment with a person who is just beginning to walk a lonesome valley but this time, not alone. And there too, the healing waters flow. Ask any one of these folks today and they’ll tell you, yes, the healing waters still flow. Furthermore, they’ll invite you to step into the healing stream! They’ll invite you to come over and help out and make a difference, because Jesus is still passing by.
To see dusty streets lined with wagons and teams of horses depicted in early drawings of what life was like over 100 years ago, with pigs roaming about and underfoot is quite startling. In our 21stCentury progressive minds it might seem to be just superstition and a vain wishing away, but something still begs for the Church’s attention and that is this: Jesus had compassion and his Church, if it is to be true to his spirit must do the same. At about the same time Harper’s Magazine claimed pigs were all underfoot on our streets,The Rev. LL Pickett came, writing. I’m not aware that the old Reverend ever stepped foot in our town, but his song seems to say his heart was not far from it.
Where the healing waters flow,
Where the joys celestial glow;
Oh, there’s peace and rest and love,
Where the healing waters flow!
(1903, Rev. LL Pickett)
No, the old preacher may have never even come our way, but he certainly knew about our healing waters. And, he knew the true source of where the healing waters came from –and deep in our hearts we do too! Amen.
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[i] M.S. Bedinger in Valley of the Vapors—Hot Springs National Park, Eastern National Park & Monument Association—Philadelphia: 1974, 1991, pp. 15-21.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Pixner, Jerusalem.
[iv] The Jewish Annotated New Testament, pg. 77