OUR LORD'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SICKNESS AND DISEASE

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume XX, Issue 10, 1 April 1930, Page 8

OUR LORD'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SICKNESS AND DISEASE

Our Lord was conscious, as man, of perfect union with God m the work of healing. He looked upon the diseased and infirm as children to whom He had been sent to preach deliverance and to bring healing, and his heart was moved with compassion at thoir condition. He looked upon disease and infirmity as powers of evil, and it was m overcoming that evil that the works of God were made manifest and God glorified. Notice His words m the case of the woman whom He loosed from the "spirit of infirmity:" "Ought no.t this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan ihath bound, Jo. these eighteen years, he loosed from this bond on the Sabbath Day?" (St. Luke, 13, 16.) His attitude towards the fever from which Peter's wife's mother was suffering was one of rebuke. "He stood over her and rebuked the fever and it left her" (St. Luke 4/38). Again, He says: "If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you" (St. Matthew 12, 28.) There can be no doubt that m His Ministry of Healing, God, made manifest m Jesus Christ, was destroying the works of the devil (St. John 3, 8). It was a direct conflist with evil. Again, we never ihear of Jesus speaking- of the disease as those whom God hath bound, but "whom Satan hath bound." We could never think of Jesus giving disease to anyone— it would be a horrible, impossible thought ; He only gave help and healing. Why, then, do we think of disease as coining to us as the direct Willof God for us? Christ is the revelation oi : God, and m all Ilia thoughts and words and deeds He reveals to us the Will of God and

the nature- of God: "I am the Lord that healeth than." God's Will is our health— physical, mental and spiritual, and through all tho disease resulting from men's turning away from the Source of Life, we see God working to draw him back to reunion and wholeness. The life of Jesus Christ is the manifestation of the unchanging love of God, coming down to and meeting men's need, to bring pardon and healing to all who turn to Him. He never withholds His healing from those who come to Him to receive it, and when the leper asks the question that is m many hearts to-day, "Lord, if Thou wilt," Christ answers, "I will." Now, if this unclouded faith m the Father's Will to iheal is the faith of our Lord as the perfect channel of healing, our clouded faith must be a source of weakness m us, and wherever our attitude towards disease differs from that of our Lord, we must be at fault. The Church to-day needs to accept our Lord's attitude towards sickness, disease, and infirmity, to realise that they are powers of evil, to fight against them singleheartedly — but unitedly, and to overcome them m the Power of God through Jesus Christ. We 'have to consider whether on this whole question we are right m affirming that sickness is sent by God. It really appears that it is sent by God, ju&t as far as, and no farther than, sin is sent by God. In both cases God permits, but does not will it to be so. It is true .that those who have patiently borne pain and suffering for Christ's sake under perhaps some weakening- disease, have daily grown nearer to Him. Here we see God bringing good out of evil, and making all things work together for good to them that Jove Him. But do not let us lose sight of the fact that the disease is evil, and that the aim of Christ was, and of His Gmrch should be, not to accept evil patiently, but patiently strive for the victory, and m the power of Christ to overcome. Every disease conquered m the Name of Christ is a victory won for God, and God is glorified m his Son Do not let us doubt that Our Lord, m healing, is bestowing a gift even greater than we might receive through patient endurance for the wholeness to which He restores us is not to be an end but a means'; it is that those whom He heals may, : like Peter's wife's mother, arise and minister. We must' face the fact that the thoughts of tho world are not the thoughts. of God; that our attitude has *'°° often been that of the multitude who

tried to hush the blind man's cries to Christ. Wliiie the power of the Lord has been present to heal we have too often reasoned together, like the. Pharisees and doctors of the law. instead of coming to Him m simple faith : and Christ, looking upon us must still be grieved at the hardness ol" bur hearts. We need to come to God m the humility of little children, definitely accepting Christ as He haa revealed Himself to us, as the Saviour of our spirit, soul, and body, desiring earnestly to "forsake our own thoughts" wheresoever they are opposed to His, and to learn of Him. Then Christ will manifest Himself to us, and by the power of the Holy Spirit- we shall be changed until that mind is m us which was also m Christ Jesus (Phil. 2.6). The subject of suffering is one too vast to dwell upon at length, here, but I' would like ,if 1 may, to point out the difference between the suffering caused by sickness and disease and the suffering by which the humanity of Onr Lord and His followers is (perfected. Christ came to bring healing to the sick and diseased. We have yet to learn that Our Blessed Lord suffered from disease. We cannot think of Him as ever having been m bondage to Satan: "The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing m Me." Christ's ministry was to deliver humanity from the bondage of sin sickness and disease, and as He draws us to Him to' find forgiveness, so He draws us to Him. to find Healing. Now we come to the Sufferings of Christ Himself, and though we may never fathom the depth of the agony He bore, we may learn a little of the nature of that suffering. We are taught that, "Ft became Him. for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things, m bringing many sons, into glory, to make the Captain of their Salvation perfect through suffering." (Hebrews 2.10). . What was the essence of the sufferings of Christ ? Was it. not the rejection of His love by those whom He loved and longed to save ? The nature of love is to give ,- love is ever proceeding forth from the Godhead, and where love sees, as God saw m fallen humanity, need and distress and peril, there the desire of love to give is more than commensurate ■with the need. This superabundant love was manifested m the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ; "Clod so loved tho world, that He gave His only begotten Son" — and where men would neither receive His love nor realise their need of it, there we see the suffering of tho Redeemer Christ wept over Jerusalem, saying, "If thou hadst known, eveii thou, at

least m this thy day, the tilings that belong to thy ponce! . ." On Calvary Our Lord was suffering m spirit, soul, and body, the greatest suffering love can ever feel— and which love alone can feel- even rejection by those whom He alone could save. And m this suffering every Christian who longs to be filled with the Divine Love has a share, to "fill up that which is behind of the Sufferings of Christ." This is not tlie suffering of disease which brings us into bondage to Satan; it is ashare m the Cross of Christ, and as long as there is m the world the spirit that rejects Christ, so Jong will all m whom Christ's spirit dwells suffer m that rejection. In following m the footsteps of our Blessed Lord, we go through Gethscmane, Gabbatha, and Golgotha, for it is only through such suffering that we can be made perfect. St. Paul shared this suffering — "My little children, of whom I travail m birth again till Christ be formed m you.' I think that we. as Christians, ought to ponder seriously the thought that m withholding the Ministry of Healing from those whom Christ came to heal we are rejecting, the Love of God and crucifying afresh the Lord of Glory. And as the call of the Healing Saviour comes to individuals, so it comes now to His Church as a whole, to His own Body, and we must see that m our generation we are faithful to our trust. The Early Church was a Healing Church. Will the same be said of the Church m the twentieth Century, or will Christ be among us as our Healer, still despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with disease ? J; M. HICKSON.