December 1998 Issue

Matthew 11:2-11

On this the third Sunday of Advent, the good news is very good indeed. It is this: Jesus is the long expected Savior. The proof is that He heals His people from poverty and disease. Did you ever think of that: That for Jesus salvation and healing are inseparable? I would think this is truly good news, especially when for such a long time Christian churches have not quite known what to do with the body.

Let us put things in perspective. Last Sunday, the gospel reading recalled for us the invaluable role John the Baptist played in preparing the way for the Messiah. His call to repentance left no one in doubt that only a heart free of pride, falsehood and violence could be ready to welcome the long expected Savior. But as invaluable as John the Baptist was as a forerunner, he could only go so far. He could terrorize the guilty conscience, but he could not heal the guilt that only the Savior-Messiah could do, because he was the bearer of the Holy Spirit of God.

As the gospel passage of today opens, several months have passed since John the Baptist went out into the desert to prepare the way of the Lord with his call to repentance. As a matter of fact, John is now languishing in jail. It was his punishment for publicly condemning the marriage of King Herod to Herodias, his brother's sister. While in jail he has received reports that Jesus seems not to be making much headway. He begins to wonder if perhaps he made a mistake when he introduced Jesus to the multitudes as the Messiah. Put yourself in his place. You are in jail, you are depressed, and on top of it all, your single greatest accomplishment looks more and more dubious each day.

Quite likely the reports that were reaching John in Jail were that more and more Jesus was being rejected by the political and religious authorities in Palestine. Could Jesus be overdoing this business of associating with the rabble at the expense of disappointing the Messianic expectations of his people?

Just in case, John sent some of his disciples to confront Jesus with the indelicate question: "Are you the one who was to come, or should we wait for someone else?"

How painful it must have been for Jesus to hear that his best friend, his most valuable ally, was no longer sure about him. Jesus had the option of getting defensive, angry, or indifferent. Instead, he chose to honor the doubt of his friend by referring his disciples to facts they could confirm with their own eyes and ears. Notice, these are facts, not theological arguments. There are times when the issue is too important for words alone. Here at stake is the identity of Jesus as the Messiah. Here only deeds can make the argument.

This is what Jesus said to the disciples of John:

"Go and tell John what you are seeing and hearing: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, those who were dying before their time are being raised to new life, and the poor are told they will no longer be poor. And happy is the one who is not scandalized because I do these things!" (Trans. by JL-B).

This is remarkable. People healed from illness and poverty are the Messianic credentials of Jesus! Could it be that Jesus never saves without healing? If so, why is it this has been such a well kept secret? When was the last time that people were healed in your church in the name of Jesus? Did he not say that we, his friends and disciples, would do even greater things than he did?

The fact of the matter is that so-called mainstream churches have left the ministry of healing to picturesque sects and charismatic communities. And those few congregations of the mainstream that are recovering healing as a legitimate ministry seldom explain that for Jesus healing is inseparable from salvation.

It is amazing that, with a gospel text like this and the collection of healing miracles of Jesus we read about, most of our preaching, teaching, and pastoral action remain so heavily in the realm of words, ideas, soul and spirit and other bodiless spheres. And where that happens, of course, the works of justice fall by the wayside. Jesus would be offended. Have no doubt about it.

For that reason, it does not seem that Jesus would be happy with interpretations of a passage like this that end up spiritualizing it like this: "When Jesus says that he restores sight to the blind, he means that he has restored our capacity to understand his message. The same is true of the lame who now walk. That means they now have a firm enough faith to walk spiritually. And when it is said that Jesus raised people who were dying before their time, it means they were dead in their sins and now their souls are free from the burden of guilt. As for preaching good news to the poor, that means that what is poor within us feels now a new kind of wealth."

This kind of spiritualization is unfortunate. It gives a bad name to spirituality and it removes Jesus from the very material circumstances where we live so much of our lives. Why not take Jesus literally? Why not let him heal our sick? Is he not capable of giving back sight to our blind? Is he not capable of making our lame walk again? Can he not give us back undiseased skin? Can he not cure us of everything we think incurable like AIDS and Alzheimer's Disease? Can he not liberate our poor from the tyranny of poverty? Of course, he can, if only we believe that he is indeed the one who was to come as God's bearer of salvation.

Perhaps we need to recover the insight that is carried by many ancient and modern languages. If we look well, the root for health and salvation is the same. Sometimes, the same word is used for both. To give you an illustration: in the classical Spanish version of the Bible of 1599, a number of times God is referred to as el "Dios de salud." ("God of health"). From the context, there is no question but that the God of health is the God of salvation. What is fascinating is that health and salvation are inseparable, and in some instances indistinguishable. Here, the linguistic fact reflects theological reality. Languages affected by the history of Judaism and Christianity, like Spanish, English, German, French, Italian and others, retain the great truth that to heal is to save, and to save is to heal.

Of course, this has enormous implications for Christian life. If our Savior is determined to save everything we are, including, of course, our bodies, who are we to neglect the health of our sick and poor? Let us insist: his healing miracles are also saving miracles. He is no spiritualizer, interested only in saving our soul. That would be totally out of character. What else could his incarnation mean? When he became one of us, he meant it. His whole life became the ground of our salvation.

This is why also the narratives of his resurrection are profound confirmations of salvation. He did not rise as a bodiless spirit. He rose whole: body, soul, and spirit, in an indivisible unity, just as he had lived, but now without the limitations of fallen existence. And when he rose like that, whole, without any of his person missing, he threw open for us the assurance of life eternal in wholeness, beginning now with the healing of our diseases, and the healing of everything that robs us of life.

Perhaps you are resisting the argument. I don't blame you. We have hard barriers to overcome, if we are truly going to believe our Savior saves by healing and heals by saving. One of the barriers, of course, is the long history of the teaching of salvation that did not include the body. Another barrier is the brutal fact of premature diseases and the diseases of age. But why should we take disease as inevitable or as incurable? Why should we not offer it to the Healer Savior for healing? After all, he told the disciples of John he had no better Messianic credentials than the restoration of lives to health.

If disease becomes inevitable or incurable, let us look at it as exceptional, as something no merciful God would wish to visit upon us. One thing we can rely on about God, from everything Jesus has disclosed about him: God takes the disease upon himself. He becomes a diseased God out of love for us. And by a glorious mystery his love in time comes out victorious, but not without infinite suffering, including his own crucifixion!

Like John the Baptist, we are in doubt about Jesus because we do not see what difference he is truly making in our lives. Nothing can remove our doubt more effectively than to let him heal our sick and our poor - perhaps this time through the work of our hands. Let's put him to the test. Why not challenge him to do a miracle or two? After all, for the God of Jesus to save is to heal, and to heal is to save. What good news! What good news indeed!

Rev. Jorge Lara-Braud

THE PROTESTANT HOUR