Thought for Today
Psalm 6:2 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.
Psalm 41:3 The Lord sustains them on their sickbed; in their illness you heal all their infirmities.
Isaiah 57:19 Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the Lord; and I will heal them.
Luke 7:3 When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave.
John 4:47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.
Home from our wonderful trip less than 24 hours, I got sick. I’ll spare everyone the details, but yesterday I could not have sat at my computer and shared my thoughts. Additionally, none of you would have wanted to hear what my mind was thinking yesterday. Needless to say, God and I had several ‘intriguing’ discussions yesterday.
My experience yesterday led me to think about the impact of all the healing miracles in the Bible. During my own lifetime, I have been privileged to witness amazing advances in medical science. My own children were successfully vaccinated for many of the childhood diseases that were common in my youth. I was an adult when the first heart transplant was successfully accomplished; now heart transplants are routine and regularly accomplished. During my seminary training, I volunteered with the chaplain’s office in a major hospital and assisted on the multi-organ transplant floor and the end-stage renal floor. In my youth, only very imaginative science fiction writers even dreamed of such advances in medicine. Then, only “Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, played by DeForest Kelley, the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise commanded by Captain James T. Kirk” (Wikipedia) ever dreamed of tricorders and the ability to diagnose instantly.
It is easy for us today to not fully appreciate the miraculousness of healing in Biblical times. To our modern ears, the concept of demonic possession being responsible for disease sounds odd; although, there were times yesterday when I did wonder. More than one person commented to me during the pandemic that ‘demon’ was an appropriate title for the COVID virus. We forget that our current understandings of medicine and disease are very recent. “Microorganisms are said to have been first directly observed in the 1670s by Anton van Leeuwenhoek, an early pioneer in microbiology, considered ‘the Father of Microbiology’.” (Wikipedia) On a Biblical timescale, that is very recent.
Next time you or a loved one are ill, put yourself in the position of one of the Israelites of the Exodus or in the position of one of those whom Jesus healed. Diseases, their various symptoms and impossibly imaginable cures were beyond comprehension. Only the divine power of our Creator God could possibly countermand the inevitable. The impact of Jesus’ healings, especially in the case of Lazarus is more understandable when we think in a historical sense.
Of course, only the divine power of our Creator God could possibly have motivated and enabled all the advances we have made in medical science. “Genesis 1:27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Were humankind not created in the image of God, how could we possibly understand any of the intricacies of Creation?
We certainly will never fully comprehend all the answers to all the questions about Creation. Some things are “beyond our paygrade.” We were not created to be gods; we were created in the image of God. But, being created in the image of God is a very special thing. We need to regularly thank God for that. It has allowed us to create an amazing world, a world where diseases are conquered and lives are extended. We have the capacity to do so very much to alleviate suffering and deprivation.
Now, if we could just learn how to get along with each other. If humankind could work together, we might even find a way to cure the ‘common’ cold. Our vistas are almost without limit, other than our amazing capacity to disagree on even the most trivial issues. Today, I am merely thankful that I feel better and that we have made so many advances in my own lifetime. And, I am reminded of the ending of the poem Footprints, “The Lord replied, “My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”
Stay safe, thank God for Creation, trust God,
Pastor Ray