Thought of the Week- July 30, 2023

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,  to proclaim freedom for the captives  and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn”. Isaiah 61: 1-2

Dear Brethren, Grace, Mercy and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, be with us all. Amen.

Jesus at the start of his earthly ministry announced the above message from Isaiah 61: 1-2, that, He is on earth to accomplish the above and proclaim the day of the Lord’s favour. The earthly ministry of Jesus can be grouped into three areas: teaching (in Greek didasko), preaching (in Greek keruso) and healing (in Greek iaomai). All three areas involve people, meaning we as people must respond to the teaching, preaching, and healing of Jesus so that we can be transformed (in Greek metamorphoo) or metaphorsed to have the life Jesus wants us to have.

I base this “Thought of the week” on a discussion I once had with a fellow student (An Oncologist) while we were both studying Theology at St. Mellitus College. The discussion centred around the difference between “curing” and “healing”. To cure, in my opinion is what medical doctors do, they “put plaster on wounds to try and stop the infection spreading, but it is God who starts the process of healing the wound by providing the antibodies in our bodies to heal the infection. To quote Ambroise Pare (regarded as the father of surgery), “I dress the wound, but God heals it”. The Hippocratic Oath undertaken by all Medical Doctors when they graduate states among others that, “a doctor is to treat all patients irrespective of their situation without causing harm or non-maleficence to them”, but unfortunately, sometimes doctors in trying to treat one disease cause something else to happen and therefore the patient is not healed. This raises the question, what is healing? To understand healing, we must understand how disease (in Greek nosos) came to afflict human beings. At creation, God saw that everything that he has created was good (in Greek kalos). Disease was not part of God’s intention and ultimately as we see in Revelation 21:4, God will wipe away all disease, sickness, death, and tear in the new creation. Since disease and sickness are alien afflictions we encounter, it is only right for us to try and fight it and that is what medical doctors try to do but it is only God who has the Divine power to heal all disease, since He naturally created the antibodies in our bodies to fight disease.   Healing is holistic while cure is specific. Curing is quick, but healing is takes time, hence the other Greek word for healing being:” therapeouo”, the root of the word therapy- a slow process to make one better.

In the light of the above, one can see healing as what Jesus did while he was here on this earth. He did this by word of mouth, that is commanding a disease or torment to leave a sick person and He also healed by laying hands on the sick. The laying on of hands catalyses the healing process empowering the individual to live victoriously; physically (in the body), emotionally (in the mind) and spiritually (in the spirit). In this sense, when we are called to pray for the sick at any time, then it is imperative we put our hands on them so that the Spirt of God can flow through us to heal that person. We should not leave our hands in our pockets but lay it on the sick person to heal them, as Jesus commanded those who believe in Him to do in Mark 16:17-18. What makes Jesus’ healing awesome was its immediacy in giving: salvation, liberation, transformation and most importantly love to those who received this healing. Examples of Jesus’ healing we see in the gospels are where He gives commands like: “receive your sight” (Luke 18:42), “receive your hearing” ( Mark 7: 34), young man arise ( Luke 7:15), “of course, I want to cure you, be healed ( Matthew 8:3), “Go your son will live” ( John 4: 50) , “Go man, your faith has saved you” (Mark 10:52).The fact that these healing happens immediately make them miracles (in Greek semeion).  Jesus’ healings also encompassed instances like the feeding of the five thousand recorded in all the four gospel which had the profound effect of transforming the people from being hungry to being fed with “the bread of life”, which will not make then hungry again.

Brethren, the healings Jesus did during His earthly ministry, was good news then and is still good news for us now and will be news in the future, if we are ready to accept His healing. It is good news because the poor will be blessed with kingdom of God and the broken- hearted will be comforted and be healed with the oil of joy that Jesus brings.  There is a saying that; “the most expensive things in this life are the things which are not countable or quantifiable”, and one of such things is one’s health. In my local Ghanaian language, we have a saying and that is: “if one has good health then one has everything”, therefore we must welcome the person who brings good health, and that person is Jesus. Isaiah 61: 1-3 quoted above was referring to the anointed one, Jesus Christ. Jesus in quoting this passage in Luke 4:16-18, proclaimed the year of the Lord favour is upon us. In Leviticus (Lev 25:10) the year of the Lord’s favour, is the Jubilee Year when all debts are cancelled, all lands are restored to their owners and all slaves are liberated. Jesus is therefore offering us the opportunity to receive forgiveness from God, be reconciled to Him, be healed, and made anew again. If this is not Good News, what is? Jesus in proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour, is saying those rejected because of their weaknesses in this world, will find acceptance before God will and be restored as true children of His in His kingdom. We should remember God is not looking for the best people, He is looking for those who will love Him and serve Him in humility. Are we ready to do this? The answer to this question is for us to make individually.

Prayer

Jesus, friend of the friendless, helper of the poor and healer of the sick, whose life was spent in doing good. We pray that, you take our infirmities whether physical, emotional, or spiritual and give us the gift of healing, making it flow through our circumstances.  Make us strong to do what is right. Lord, make us gentle with the weak, kind to all in sorrow and help us follow in your footsteps as we try to build your kingdom here on earth, in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Clement Arde-Acquah