[AI translation] For a long time now, I have wanted to clarify here in the congregation an issue that has been of increasing concern to the Christian Church in recent times, in the world and in our own country. It is the question that is also addressed in our foundation gospel: the question of sickness and healing. I think the best time to do this is now, when, as we know, we are celebrating the Sunday of the Elderly and the Sick in our congregation. So I would like to talk about what divine revelation says about the problems of illness and recovery from illness.The common human understanding is that health is a natural state and sickness is an unnatural state of man. But from the standpoint of faith, we must see the matter in the opposite way, that is, that sickness is the natural state, the natural state of man who has fallen into sin. Sickness is the germ of death in man. In all sickness the greatest sickness is death in some way. Every sickness is a reminder that we are mortal and every cure is in fact a postponement of death. Someone once said that the sick man is: the man invited; the man betrothed to death, the man called by death! That is, we are what we always are, but we forget it when we are healthy. Well: sickness reminds us that life on earth is short, that we have no city here to stay, but we are looking for the future! In fact, illness is not only an announcement, a knock on the door of impending death, but is itself a symptom of death in man, an expression of man's primordial illness. The fact that, long ago, in the beginning, he was cut off from the vital ground of our life, from communion with God, that he fell out of paradise, out of a state of blissful perfection.
So illness is not only a biological process, not only an organic and structural disturbance in the body, but illness is already a sign, a sign of a deeper metaphysical disturbance. That man's whole existence is sick - corrupted - by sin. We should not understand this to mean that if someone is given infantile paralysis, he should examine what specific sin he has committed for which he is suffering the disease as a punishment. No! It is not such a connection between sin and sickness, but because man's human being is not right at the root: consequently his whole nature is messed up. That is why I said before that man's natural state is sickness, a deadly sickness, because man's nature is mortal because of sin. It has in itself death, the necessity of dying, and therefore to be human and to be sick: the two are inseparable. It is only the universal grace of God, all-embracing and all-pervading, that restrains death: hence there is relative health on earth, among men. So we must first see this clearly.
Since there is such a connection between sickness and sin, it follows that there is a connection between salvation from sin and healing. That is why, around Jesus, who came to earth to redeem us from sin and all its consequences, sick people were healed one after another. In the person of Jesus, the divine power of healing has almost invaded this sin-contaminated world. "And they asked Him to put on the hem of His garment only. And all who touched it were healed." (Mt 14,36) In the person of Jesus is concentrated the kingdom of God, which is nothing less than the restoration of what sin has destroyed. That is why the power of the devil and death flee from Jesus, why the sick are healed by the touch of his hand, because in the coming kingdom of God, when the powers of redemption have been completed in the world, there will be no more sin, sickness and death! So, healing from sickness is part of the restoration of the human condition, corrupted by sin, to its original state through Christ, who came to destroy the works of the devil. The healing of the body is seen in the Bible as a sign of the redemption that will be completed in the creation at the return of Jesus. The healing of the body is a foreshadowing of the coming redemption of our bodies. It is not the final redemption of the body, for no matter how miraculously healed, a person can fall ill again, and at some point the healed person must die of something. Jesus has conquered death, but he has not yet destroyed it. We are still living in the shadow of death, however true it may be that the light of the resurrection is already shining through. In any case, in the healing from illness, there is already at work the redemptive power that will finally triumph over death!
In practice, this means that all healing is in fact a miracle, a miracle of the grace that has been made manifest to us in Jesus Christ. For it was He who bore our sicknesses, who bore our pains, by whose wounds we are healed (cf. Isa 53:4-5). Jesus Christ alone is the healer of a broken human life. The redemptive power of Christ works even when a headache is quelled by an aspirin pill or high blood pressure is pulled down by an injection of vasolastine. So, once again, all healing is a miracle, part of the one miracle that Jesus Christ is in this world, that is, God's mercy on oppressed, broken human life. Every healing is a sign of the redemptive power of God at work in the world. It is not the doctor who heals, nor the medicine, just as it is not prayer or faith that heals, but God. The doctor, medicine, or prayer and faith are only the means through which God reaches out to work His power in our powerlessness. If we lose sight of this, we fall into either religious or scientific magic. It is the magical attitude that expects all results from prescribed acts, words or remedies, that attributes magical power to medical, religious acts. For example, he believes that if he says a certain prayer formula, the patient will be cured. Or he takes a pill and everything is fine. A believing doctor once deflected the glory by saying, "I just dressed the wound and God healed it." And the Christian patient who is a believer sees the doctor as an instrument of the Lord, a co-worker in His divine work. Yes, we are free, we can pray that the Lord will use the doctor and the medicine to deliver our lives from sickness.
Of course, it can also happen - not out of contempt for medical science, but in the certainty of God's omnipotence - that a believing patient renounces the use of medical science, its help, and waits and asks directly for healing from God. Just as there are also people who, by faith, renounce all earthly goods and live entirely by faith alone. But they do not call unbelievers those who do not do so. The unbelief of the Church is not that its members seek the help of medicine - for that is a gift of God's grace - but that they do not seek healing from Him who alone can give it, with or without human intervention. This is clear from the instruction which the apostle James gives to the churches here, in case any of them should fall sick, saying. Call unto him the elders of the church, and pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." (Jas 5,14) So in the church, the sick person should not be left alone, reach out to the church and the church should take the sick person's hand, put a prayer ring around it, help him to ask for the Lord's healing, for His saving power, help him to believe in the Lord, because faith is the recipient of healing. Faith does not heal, but Jesus Christ heals by faith. Faith is the psychological state that enables Jesus to come so close to man that He can do His divine work in him. Faith is the state of the personality in which God can unfold His power. That is why the apostle says to pray over the sick.
James also says to anoint with oil. There is an explanation that the apostle is recommending to the churches the contemporary remedy, the cure-all, for the care of the sick: rubbing the aching part of the body with healing oil. I find it unlikely that this is what the instruction means. Much less a last rites-like procedure in preparation for death. After all, it is not a renunciation of the hope of healing that is being expressed here, but rather a sign of the dedication of oil to the service of the Lord throughout the Bible. It meant, therefore, that the sick person should be healed in order to be able to dedicate himself more fully to the Lord. So it is not healing itself that is the goal, but healing is only the means by which the Lord enables a person who has been sick to serve Him more faithfully and faithfully. He heals him so that he can serve Him better. But it is also possible that the Lord does not want to do it through the healing, but through the illness - that is, He wants to make the illness a source of blessing for the person and for the environment.
I said: every healing is a miracle. But can there not also be in non-healing sometimes an even greater miracle: the transformation of a person into a person of one will with the will of God! The anointing with oil was surely a sign that the patient, whether by his healing, his illness or even his death, was to proclaim the goodness and glory of God. For the greatest miracle in this world is Jesus Christ himself. His person, His mission, His work, the manifestation of God's love in our flesh and blood, the miracle of the forgiveness of sins. Spiritual healing through the forgiveness of sins is always of greater value than being able to walk the paths of life on earth a few years longer. And that, above all, is why Jesus came into this world: to reconcile us to God. He came to bear God's wrath on our behalf, to take away the burden of our sins and condemnation, so that we might stand before God as righteous in the grace of forgiveness. This is the supreme gift of God to sinful man.
That is why Jesus died and rose from the dead! This is the one necessary thing: a life reconciled to God for the sacrifice of Christ. What good is it if you are healed and healed of your own damnation?! But if you have received forgiveness of sins, you cannot receive more and greater! If you even get a healing from the disease, that is just an extra, an outward sign, a seal of approval of the forgiveness of sins. The Lord can heal you physically from any sickness, He has the power to do so, and He will certainly heal you, if He sees fit to make your life more profitable for His glory! But then, the physical healing is not the main goal, but what James says: "And if he has sinned, he is forgiven".
True help is found - whether healing takes place or not - where a relationship with Jesus is established. And that is the task of the church! But again, be careful here, it is not that prayer is some kind of method, or cure, or spiritual tool that one can use to influence God to do what one wants with Him. Prayer for the sick is not magic, not a reading, but a faithful seeking and happy finding of God's will. It is an immersion in the hand that gives grace and has the power to help and heal. The love and prayer of the congregation should be like holding the hand of a sick brother with one hand and that of Jesus with the other, and thus expressing visibly and perceptibly the contact between the Lord and the sick. Would that the Lord Himself would teach us to love and pray in such a way that our brethren, who could not come to us because of sickness or the infirmities of old age, would truly feel His forgiving, comforting, saving, healing powers and would thank the Lord of Life with us!
Amen
Date: 8 June 1958, Old and Sick Sunday.
Lesson
Mk 2,1-10