As a young doctor I was always concerned because it seemed to me that the Bible had nothing to say about doctors. When healing occurs it is usually linked with the miraculous. Luke is the only doctor mentioned in the Bible, and he was not working as a medical practitioner.
I was thinking about this yesterday when our good friends Steve and Michelle Ruetschle came to visit. Some of you may remember when I wrote about him a couple of years ago in Do Miracles Still Happen. According to the doctors Steve should be a quadriplegic. Though medical science certainly helped in his healing, Steve would not be walking today without the healing powers of God.
Health and healing, the practice of medicine and the principles of hygiene in the Hebrew world, all fell under the Levitical mantle, part of the religious framework of life. Medicine and the care of the sick is part of the priestly calling a life set aside in service to God.
It was the Levites to whom God gave the principles for health and hygiene. They were responsible for both the physical and spiritual health of the community. God gave them detailed instructions for basic cleanliness and sanitation that if followed today would greatly increase the level of hygiene in many a struggling nation. It would be hard for us to imagine our church workers as garbage disposal experts or as sanitation workers, yet for the Levites this all came under their jurisdiction.
Spiritual and physical health were linked as one ministry. Physical cleanliness was for the priests a symbol of spiritual cleanliness. One depended on the other and both were performed by those people whose lives were set aside to serve God.
In the early Judeo – Christian church, healing was considered part of the religious function of the community. Monetary compensation was forbidden. In contrast the Graeco-Roman tradition professionalized medicine and saw it as a vocation to be monetarily compensated – the model that we now embrace.
The rapid growth of the early church was probably a result of its power to heal, to cast out demons and to create communities of mutual care. Interestingly, this was closely linked to an acceptance of suffering as an identification with the sufferings of Christ and an understanding of physical illness as part of a larger paradigm in which God’s grace works through human weakness. Throughout most of Christian history, the church provided centers for healing and cared for the sick and the suffering. In the Middle Ages the monasteries were centers of healing They were often famous for their herb gardens which provided a broad range of medicinal substances that were produced for the use both within the monastic community as well as in the outside secular community.
In this framework, the medical attendant was seen as a servant to the poor and the sick, someone who came to relieve their pain, to heal their hurts to comfort their concerns. Spiritual and physical health and healing walked hand in hand, separate parts of a whole person.
I thought that you might be interest in this interesting reference to health care workers that I found. It is not in the Protestant Bible but in the Appocrypha, those books between the Old and New Testament that are considered by some to be a part of the Biblical text.
From the Book of Ecclessiasticus (part of Appocrypha)
“Hold the physician in honour, for he is essential to you,
and God it was who established his profession.
From God the doctor has his wisdom, and the king provides for his sustenance.
His knowledge makes the doctor distinguished, and gives him access to those in authority.
God makes the earth yield healing herbs which the prudent man should not neglect;
Was not the water sweetened by a twig that men might learn his power?
He endows men with the knowledge to glory in his mighty works,
Through which the doctor eases pain and the druggist prepares his medicines;
Thus God’s creative work continues without cease in its efficacy on the surface of the earth.
My son when you are ill, delay not, but pray to God, who will heal you;
Flee wickedness; let you hands be just, cleanse your heart of every sin;
Offer your sweet-smelling oblation and petition, a rich offering according to your means.
Then give the doctor his place lest he leave; for you need him too.
There are times that give him an advantage, and he too beseeched God
That his diagnosis may be correct and his treatment bring about a cure.
He who is a sinner toward his Maker will be defiant toward the doctor.”
Ecclesiasticus 38:1-15
May the blessing of Light be on you
Light without and light within,
May the blessed sunlight shine on you
And warm your heart till it glows like
A great peat fire, so that the stranger
May come and warm himself at it,
And also a friend.
And may the light shine out of the two eyes of you,
Like a candle set in two windows of a house,
Bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the Rain be on you
The soft sweet rain. May it fall upon your spirit
So that all the little flowers may spring up,
And shed their sweetness on the air.
And may the blessing of the Great Rains be on
You, may they beat upon your spirit
And wash it fair and clean,
And leave there many a shining pool
Where the blue of heaven shines,
And sometimes a star.
And may the blessing of the Earth be on you
The great round earth; may you ever have
A kindly greeting for them you pass
As you’re going along the roads.
May the earth be soft under you when you rest upon it,
Tired at the end of the day,
And may it rest easy over you when,
At the last, you lay out under it;
May it rest so lightly over you,
That your soul may be out from under it quickly,
And up, and off, and on its way to God.
I was sent this blessing a few days ago – not sure where it comes from though. If you can help I would appreciate you letting me know
Over the next week or so my posts will revolve around healing in the Bible. I started with the idea of one post on healing gardens but this has grown as I have reflected on my own history in healing and quest for a Biblical understanding. The forst post is adapted from one I wrote several years ago
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I no longer practice medicine but am still passionate about health, particularly for the poor. One of my yearly tasks is to download the latest World Health and United Nations Human Development reports. When I first started reading these reports in the mid 1980s there was a sense of optimism and excitement. Life expectancy was increasing rapidly, child mortality was plummeting and infectious diseases such as smallpox and measles were being brought under control. Over the last few years however many of these trends have been reversed and I have found the statistics rather discouraging and somewhat daunting.
The greatest health challenge for millions of children worldwide is still whether or not they will survive to their fifth birthday. Children in developing countries, already lack proper nutrition and may also lack access to affordable measles vaccinations and simple interventions for diarrhoeal diseases. Children are also most likely to die from malaria. Overall 35% of Africa’s children are at higher risk of death today than they were 10 years ago. Every hour 500 African women lose a small child. Even those who do make it past childhood are confronted with adult death rates greater than 30 years ago. Life expectancy is shrinking – in some countries by as much as 20 years
Tragically the causes of many of these deaths could easily be controlled with simple vaccines or antibiotics. Six deadly infections – pneumonia, tuberculosis, diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, measles and more recently , HIV/AIDS – account for half of all premature deaths, killing mostly children and young adults. And, while not major killers, a number of other diseases, often neglected by researchers because they have little impact on health in wealthier countries cause chronic disability and stigma for millions of men, women and children. Unfortunately those who are most vulnerable often lack access to essential medicines. WHO estimates that 15% of the world’s population consumes 91% of the world’s pharmaceuticals.
Many of these challenges overwhelm me. They make me wonder: “Does God care about physical health particularly for the most vulnerable in our world?” I often struggled with this as I worked in poor communities in Africa and Asia.
God does care. From the time the children of Israel came out of Egypt God showed concern for their physical as well as their spiritual well being. However God’s prescription for health was always very different from that of the surrounding cultures. During Moses life, the Papyrus Ebers written about 1552 B.C. provided many of the standard treatments for disease. Drugs included “lizards’ blood, swines’ teeth, putrid meat, stinking fat, moisture from pigs ears, goose grease, asses’ hoofs, excreta from animals, including human beings, donkeys, antelopes, dogs, cats and even flies.”
Not quite our idea of good medicine and not God’s either.
Central to God’s model of health and wholeness is reconciliation to God. Healing depended not only on the taking of medicine but primarily on obedience to God’s word and commandments. Many of the laws of Leviticus are good preventative health directives that we still use today. These regulations include nutrition, environmental laws and behaviour – the three primary factors that influence the health of any community. Others are guidelines for how the most vulnerable in society are to be cared for.
Interestingly the Greek word most commonly translated save in the New Testament SOZO can also be translated heal. It means to heal, preserve, save, make whole. Healing from a Christian perspective is the process of moving towards wholeness in body, soul and spirit. The purpose of medicine is to support and encourage human wholeness in every respect.
Nothing speaks more highly of God’s desire for healing than the incredible systems of protection and repair within our own bodies. The immune system cures most of the illnesses that attack us. Wounds heal, bones knit together and tissue repairs itself in miraculous ways we rarely think about unless something goes wrong. At best doctors and nurses assist God’s healing work yet we rarely thank God for these miracles.
Unfortunately in our imperfect world, corrupted by sin and disease, these systems don’t always work but God provided other elements to assist the healing process. Most modern medicines originate from medicinal plants and herbs that are a part of God’s wonderful creation.
The Cross is probably the most powerful symbol of and power for healing in the world. Its redeeming and transforming power brings healing to body soul and spirit – and beyond that it brings healing to communities, and eventually will bring healing to our entire broken world.
The taking of communion is another powerful symbol of healing. In many churches healing services are Eucharistic, deliberately linking our need for healing to confession, repentance and forgiveness. (1 Cor 11:27-34) Baptism too, because it infuses a person with new life, the life of Christ, can drive out before it all the powers of sickness and death.(Rom 6: 1-14)
James 5:13-16 lists other important symbols of healing we need to pay attention to. Praying for the sick, often associated with laying on of hands, anointing with oil, singing psalms and hymns, confession and forgiveness are all practices that can encourage the healing process.
Observing the liturgical calendar is another way that God’s people can find God’s healing. “By connecting to the seasons of the church year we enter into a rhythm that focuses every day and every season very intentionally on the One who gives all of life meaning and purpose. By celebrating through the structures of the Church we actually are given the forms we need to become whole and we are given the formulas to make whole every human experience.”
An wholistic approach to health that embraces the need for both spiritual and physical transformation is an extremely effective way to eradicate infectious diseases. LifeWind International (formerly Medical Ambassadors International) www.lifewind.org works to improve the total health and well-being of children, women and men in communities worldwide by addressing the root causes of poverty, disease, and hopelessness. LifeWind’s Community Health Evangelism (CHE) is an integrated wholistic strategy that equips and empowers communities to discover and implement effective and lasting solutions to their problems through the combination of disease prevention, economic enterprise, and social and spiritual renewal. People from over 150 organizations are using CHE training and materials to serve the poor around the world.
God does will healing not just for us but for all human kind. Incredibly we are asked to become participants in the process and bring God’s healing and wholeness to others. The statistics are overwhelming but fortunately God does not call us to change statistic but to transform lives. Even providing a cup of clean water can make a difference. And as Matthew 10:42 reminds us “if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”
good samaritan – african from Jesusmafa.com
In the Anglican church we attended yesterday the gospel portion was Luke 9: 18 – 24 in which Jesus asks the disciples who the crowds think he is and then who they think he is. The crowds see a prophet, the disciples see the Christ of God, the long awaited Messiah.
Sounds great but who exactly is this Messiah? Even Peter and the disciples got it wrong. They expected an earthly king. Someone who looked a little like the Roman generals only better. Jesus’s description that follows was far beyond their comprehension.
And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:22,23)
The idea of a vulnerable God who willingly exposes himself to suffering, pain and death is hard for all of us to believe. A God with an aching heart who walks amongst the poor, eats with prostitutes, heals lepers, stands with the marginalized, this is the kind of God we still tend to reject. This is the kind of God who is still beyond our comprehension. That Jesus asks us to become like this is often even more incomprehensible.
The closer we walk to Jesus, the closer we move toward the love of God, the more aware we become of the fact that our God is not the arrogant “godlike” character we expect. Out of my meditations yesterday I wrote this prayer:
God you made yourself vulnerable,
Shown us your aching heart,
Open to abuse and contempt,
Willing to be scarred,
Accepting death as a criminal.
This is your love,
This is your faithfulness,
This is you revealed in Jesus Christ.
May we see and give thanks,
Amen.
So my question for today – how do we embrace this God, this vulnerable One with a broken heart and nail scarred hands? And then how do we follow him?
The light of God shines through
Most of this week’s prayers on Light for the Journey have been borrowed from other inspirational writers. It seemed very appropriate considering the discussion said prayers are dead prayers this week.
A Weekend Reflective Prayer
A Reflective Prayer for this weekend.
You are our shelter, O Lord,
A shield in the battle
A protection from the evil one.
You are our shelter, O Lord,
A haven from the high wave,
a harbour in the storm.
You are our shelter, O Lord,
A cover from the heat,
A guard against the icy blast.
You are our shelter, O Lord,
A light upon our path,
A presence in our darkness.
You are our shelter, O Lord,
A companion in our travels,
There at the journey’s end.
You ARE our shelter, O Lord.
David Adam, ‘A Sure Shelter’.
Posted by The Contemplative network
Glory to God who gives us life,
Glory to God who shows us love,
Glory to God who transforms death into life,
Glory to God who makes all things new.
Christine Sine http://godspace.wordpress/,com
Another beautiful prayer by Micahel Leunig
Dear God,
We pray for another way of being:
another way of knowing.
Across the difficult terrain of our existence
we have attempted to build a highway
and in so doing have lost our footpath.
God lead us to our footpath:
Lead us there where in simplicity
we made move at the speed of natural creatures
and feel the earth’s love beneath our feet.
Lead us there where step-by-step we may feel
the movement of creation in our hearts.
And lead us there where side-by-side
we may feel the embrace of the common soul.
Nothing can be loved at speed.
God lead us to the slow path; to the joyous insights
of the pilgrim; another way of knowing: another way of being.
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ
Let us see your love,
Let us know your life,
Let us trust your faithfulness.
Hold us close and never let us go.
Amen
Christine Sine https://godspacelight.com/
Your love,
flowing within us,
living water
purifying
in that cleansing flow;
and our worship,
in sweet harmony
echoing
through the air as birdsong
at the dawning of this day.
Stream meets stream
and river flows,
emptying into Ocean’s store.
Your grace,
offering to us
forgiveness,
liberty
from all that binds us;
and our prayers,
joining together,
rising
as a fragrant offering
to the heart of the divine.
Stream meets stream
and river flows,
emptying into Ocean’s store.
Your call,
whispering to us,
offering
encouragement
on our journeying;
and our service,
the only response
we can give,
a willing sacrifice
to the Godhead, Three in One.
Stream meets stream
and river flows,
emptying into Ocean’s store.
Occupy my heart with your tremendous Life.
Let my eyes see nothing in the world but Your glory, and let my hands touch nothing that is not for your service.
Let my tongue taste no bread that does not strengthen me to praise Your great mercy.
I will hear Your voice and I will hear all harmonies You have created, singing Your hymns.
Sheep’s wool and cotton from the field shall warm me enough that I may live in your service; I will give the rest to Your poor.
Let me use all things for one sole reason: to find my joy in giving You glory.
-Thomas Merton
Mt Rainier from the air
Tom and I only have a couple more days in Sydney before we head back to Seattle. I am so looking forward to heading home. I know I am home when Mt Rainier appears in the plane window. Seeing our dog, the garden, our new community members. Hearing about all that has happened while we were gone and getting ready for a very full summer. These too make me feel I have come home.
Heading home I think and my heart swells, but there is an ache too because Sydney is also home. I will miss my family, the birdsong, the smell of eucalyptus in the air. I will miss the memories of what I grew up with, the familiarity of a culture that is still ingrained in my being.
In our highly mobile global world my situation is not unusual. Many of us have several places we call home. Some collect passports like souvenirs. But a sense of home, of belonging, of knowing who we are is important. And if that belonging is not connected to a physical location, then the spiritual roots, the longings that keep us headed towards God’s home, the eternal shalom world, become even more important. Knowing who we are in God and the destination towards which God calls us is an essential foundation for our faith.
Richard Foster calls prayer finding the heart’s true home and as I sit here getting ready to head back to Seattle I find myself looking toward that home rather than a physical destination. In the next couple of weeks Tom and I will go away for one of our quarterly spiritual retreats. This is part of the rhythm of our life that keeps us rooted in the purposes of God. It is a particularly important practice after a busy trip like this one has been because it helps us to view all that happens through the lens of our faith rather than through the lens of our busy activity.
What are the spiritual practices that make you feel at home with God? What is the “home” the destination toward which you are moving?
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