Last blog post, I reflected on why our assumption of equating God's love with a life void of pain and suffering can be challenged.
I have also pointed out two cases where we saw how assumptions can blind our perceptions of God's love or increase our awareness of it.
I made such a contrast between the authors of two Psalms, 22 and 44.
I don't want to dedicate more of your reading time to summarizing the last post. But, I ended it wondering what made the 22 Psalm writer so confident in the goodness and love of God despite the pain and the suffering.
So, back we go to the historical author of Psalm 22.
He found God’s love demonstrated clearly elsewhere. The proof was too strong that while he could not explain the evil happening to him, he could proclaim God's goodness.
Imagine with me…
In the previous post, I mentioned how God used leprosy as a visual lesson for the horrors of sin and its impact on the individual. I mentioned how if leprosy reminds us of the work of sin in the individual, COVID-19 mirrors its infectious nature, and the failure of social isolation to address the infection without a cure or a vaccine.
Now, imagine yourself full of leprosy, sent to exile to die slowly away from all who you love or that you have been infected with COVID-19 in an ICU bed fighting for your life when, all of a sudden, a doctor comes in with no protective gear, holds your hand and promises you healing. Not seeing how he has done it, but you are able to breathe and you feel well. That doctor says, “now let’s run some lab tests so the hospital can release you.”
You may say, “sounds nice”. I suspect you are the kind kind if you know what I mean. No, this is not a repeated word error as my software is trying to convince me.
Anyways, some, not less in their kindness, may wonder, and rightfully so, “this is fiction; it may tickle the heart’s desires for hope and its joyful hypnotizing effect is nothing more than fleeting.”
I agree. Reality seems to hit us hard choking any emerging hope. Hardships, like Jesus once said in his parable of the seeds, have that choking effect. But, let’s ask the question, did it actually happen?
The Proof: He Heals
Well, this has actually happened to a leper in exile and doomed to die with no cure yet known. In the old testament, no one would touch a beloved with leprosy in fear of being unclean and getting infected until Jesus came.
“if you will, you can heal me,” the man cried.
His many years of exile and slow death have not yet chocked emerging hope. He must have heard about the miracles Jesus performed. I don’t know if he heard that Jesus had healed lepers before him. I don’t know that Jesus had healed any leper before him. Certainly, this was the first account of a leper being healed in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Perhaps, he was indeed the first leper to dare ask for healing from this incurable disease. Perhaps, his imagination took him to a land where it was possible for a man like him to get a second chance, experience healing, and the restoration of relationships based on love, acceptance, and nearness.
His imagination was not far off. In fact, it was closer to reality than statistical facts. According to what happened in this historical account, the man was right; Jesus healed him.
The Two Possible Reactions
Now, I suspect two reactions here.
The first kind may wonder if I am going to follow- up with a defence on the historicity of the story or the possibility of miracles. Unfortunately, I will do neither here. My quick response, however, is if a caring personal God exists, then miracles are probable. It only becomes a matter of verifying each claim on an individual basis. If Jesus did exist and if he is God, then the story is very likely true. Add the three historical witness accounts and I think you would be able to let the objections go. So, even if you are the kind who likes to dwell on theories about one main source where most of the contents three gospels came from, the previous conclusion remains unaltered.
But this is exactly why I did not want to go there, not now at least. Not because there are no convincing arguments for the reliability of the gospels, the existence of God, and the possibility of miracles, there are plenty. And not because I am trying to dismiss your objections or trivialize them either. But, it is because most people get tangled up that they lose the hope of why they needed to ask these questions in the first place. I wanted to take you right to the end result, meeting Jesus himself and him reviving you, just like the leper, just like our story of the ICU patient.
Imagine if the leper got caught up in all these questions, he would never have reached where hope had taken him with the news he heard about Jesus’s other miracles. But, should you choose the longer and cyclical way, perhaps you will see the historical plausibility of an entire nation losing its pathway to its promised destiny wasting its lifetime going in circles.
Here, I shall stop. Sorry for any disappointments I caused to those who have that first reaction.
Second are those, the kind kind, not a typo, who will move along with me and wonder, “I thought you said that God’s love is not to be found in His blessings. So, why did you use the example of the leper?”
That’s right. I did say that God’s love is not to be found only in his blessings and physical healing from illness is a blessing. But, remember when I also talked about how a certain tangible or material truth may represent a higher spiritual reality? I want to take you back to that.
Leprosy and COVID-19 resemble in their impact the effects and the consequences of sin in our lives; they also reveal human’s failure to cure sin. We might have had difficulty relating to the Old Testament use of leprosy to teach about sin and its devastating effects. Now, we won’t have this difficulty when we consider COVID-19.
We respect, honour, and thank the front-line healthcare workers; they do their work knowing the risks that include isolation from their family, including those in the same household and even losing their life. Jesus did lose his life. He experienced the human’s spiritual separation from the most beloved father as he bore our sins. But his sacrifice barely receives the same response. Mostly because we don’t look for God’s love there. Yet, this is exactly why the 22nd psalm could end with praise. Jesus whom the Psalm speaks on his behalf, and who used this Psalm while on the cross, drawing our attention to its significance, was able to praise because he, too, recognized, that on the cross God's love will earn all of us life and victory. So, upon the cross is where you find God's love in the darkness.
He loved me so He was crucified for me
Not only did the cross of Jesus bridge the distance between man and God, but it also bridged the distance between the unclean enemy and the holiest One that we might see Him touch the leper with eyes full of bold love. His love was not intimidated by or scared of our physical and terminal spiritual diseases or by the extent of corruption ailing our bodies and soul. Thus, when the only possible human solution to a devastating disease was social distancing and isolation, God stood right there by the lepers extending his healing and merciful hand. Ponder this miracle as if you were an eye- witness or think of the hypothetical situation I gave about the ICU patient. How much of you would still demand an explanation of the evil that happened to you? Would you be able to testify for his love despite the mystery of pain?
Perhaps what we should be looking for is not a justification for what God allows. Perhaps, what we should be seeking is His touch that “reveals his love as the hearer of prayer who saves his suffering servant by his glorious grace” (Gordon J. Keddie, Prayers of the Bible)
And Jesus "stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him" (Luke 5:13).
I imagine that as Jesus and the man went their separate ways that the man sang,
He touched me, Oh He touched me,
And oh the joy that floods my soul!
Something happened and now I know,
He touched me and made me whole
Let me stand in awe before this scene with God in all his love and might yet in human flesh extends his hands to touch a leper, a leper made whole with an everlasting song of joy that will never depart his heart despite the mystery of pain. Let it not depart the eyes of my heart. Let me not be intimidated to reach out to others in fear of being hurt or rejected because your love is enough.