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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 bathhouses stretch 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 springs just 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.
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No, he was seeking rest and solitude, getting to a place where the crowds weren’t
everywhere-the stomachs weren’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. ivBut 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 makeshift 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.
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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 21st Century 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.
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
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