iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for
those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed
our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so
the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we are
formed, He remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:10)
“I waited patiently for the Lord, He turned to me and heard my cry. He
lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of
praise to our God.” (Psalm 40:1-3)
“I have seen your tears; I will heal you.” (2 Kings 20:4)
Healing us is not just offering a little tissue when we have a slight sniffle.
We would love our illnesses to be tiny scratches that need Band-Aids, or a
fever that leaves us a pallid , pathetic creature stretched out on a chaise lounge,
inspiring tenderness and motherly love and a cool cloth placed on the brow.
More often, the kinds of illness we need healing from are far more messy.
Think about yourself at your most paranoid, most selfish, most mean. We
are more like projectile vomiting, explosive diarrhea and oozing pus, sloughing
skin that a vitamin deficient toxic diet of garbage will cause. What’s worse is
that we are contagious. Our oozing wounds spread to those we are around,
in the form of the same indifference, neglect, belittlement or abuse that we
experienced. And some of us aren’t cute little kids that just need more frequent
diaper changes. We are full-grown adults who are spurting vomit and waste all
over the place. Because although at one point the garbage may have been fed
to us, at another point we started to choose to eat it, too.
And yet, God touches those leprous, dripping stumps. He lets the woman
who leaves a 12-year trail of blood behind her touch His robes. He’ll even bear
the stench of a rotting Lazarus dead in the tomb four days to heal us. Yes, He
suffers the little children to come to Him, but what is far more wondrous is
that He also welcomes the image-conscious, scaredy-cat Pharisee sneaking up
to Him in the middle of the night.
Being rescued and healed doesn’t always occur in an obviously miraculous
fashion. It is miraculous, but rarely instantaneous and usually without an
accompanying magic show. Think about Noah’s rescue: 40 days and nights of
rain on a boat full of seasick and stir crazy animals. I am sure there were some
days Noah thought it might have been better just to drown along with the
wicked.
Of course, this is illustrating our own minds. The wicked part must die,
and this is a harrowing process since that wicked part is very much enmeshed
with the rest of us, and the separation process often feels like a crazy menagerie
of wild animals lurching around in a tempest-tossed wooden boat.
An obvious example is addiction. Anyone who has had an addiction will
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