In Honor of Health Care Professionals
Dr. Joseph B. Fuiten, February 19, 2006
I am alive today in great part because of the skill of Health Care Professionals. We want to honor those who help us in so many ways.
The fear of sickness has several dimensions. A lot of it has to do with avoiding pain. It often hurts to be sick. We don’t like that.
Sometimes it is the anxiety of what happened to others happening to us. If a parent or other relative died of some disorder, we worry that it might get us as well. We think it might run in the family or have some root cause connected to the family past.
Sometimes it is just plain anxiety. After I had my heart attack, it is amazing how the mind starts to work. I became very attentive to my heart, keeping a close eye on it, realizing it secretly wanted to kill me. It seemed like it was not beating as strongly as it should. Maybe it was getting ready to go into fibrillation again. I would call the doctor. He would have his set of diagnostic question. The key one was “Is it feeling like it did when you had your heart attack?” “No.” Well, I think it will be fine. “OK, I guess I will live a while longer then. Have a nice day.”
I am glad that my experience is helping others. A couple of weeks ago when Norm Salveson had a heart attack at home he wanted Diane to take him to the hospital. She remembered what I had said about that. She responded, “No, we are going to call 911.” That was a good move.
For Christian people, we sometimes worry there may be some cosmic cause behind our sickness. Maybe God is mad at us for something. I told you the story of Christine Sanders when she got breast cancer. At the time, she wondered aloud what she had done to deserve this. That is quite common.
The concern
about God is not entirely beyond reason.
The same Old Testament passage that tells us that God is a healer also
raises the questions as to the relationship between sickness and sin. It is Exodus 15:25-26. It reads, “There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested
them, and said, ‘If you diligently heed
the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to
His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on
you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.’’
We like “Jehovah Rapha,” the Lord that heals. We even like that he will put none of these diseases upon us as he put upon the Egyptians in the plagues of the Exodus. On the other hand, when a disease comes upon us, our mind begins to wonder if God is punishing us for something.
Personally, I think God wants us to think that way. Not as a way to make us feel guilty or vulnerable, because who has not committed some sin in their life, at one time or another, that is clearly deserving of punishment.
Jesus actually spoke on this topic. I want to come to that, but first let me give a bit of the background to the story.
When you see a serpent on a pole what are you seeing? To most people it is merely the symbol of the American Medical Association or related medical organizations. The origin of the serpent coiled around a pole actually is in the Bible somewhere around 1440 BC during the Exodus. It wasn’t until some centuries later that the Greeks picked it up and associated it with their god, Asclepius. Here is the story of its origins.
Numbers 21:4-9: They traveled from
Spiritually, we could tell the
story like this. Israeli rebelled
against God’s provision and Moses’ leadership during the Exodus. God punished their sin by allowing serpents
to bite them. Because the people
repented, God provided a cure for the snakebite by putting an image of their
sin upon a cross so they might live. The
snake on a pole thus became the symbol of healing and forgiveness for
We know the true meaning of the serpent on the cross because Jesus himself explained it. In John 3:14-15, while talking to Nicodemus Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
Paul helps us to understand that the cure took on the shape of the cause. In 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 Paul wrote, “We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Let’s return to why God actually
wants us to think about sin when we are sick. It is not that he wants to put
the diseases of the Egyptians upon us because of our sin. He wants us to look to the cross for
forgiveness of sin. In fact, that is the
meaning of the cross. Jesus took upon
himself the consequences of our sins.
That is not to say there will be no natural sanctions for certain types
of behaviors. But God will not judge you
with sickness for your sins. Otherwise
you would be paying for your own sins and the cross would be made of no effect.
Our anxiety about judgment is
related to healing and forgiveness. The subject of healing is important because it is not just
about physical healing. Physical healing
is a metaphor for something more. Physical healing is a metaphor for spiritual
healing. That is why James 5:14-16 speaks about forgiveness at the same time it
speaks of healing. “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray
over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer
offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.
If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you
may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
When
salvation takes place, there is confirmation of a physical sort. Hebrews 2:3-4
“This salvation, which was first
announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also
testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy
Spirit distributed according to his will.”
In Luke 5:24-25 tied healing and forgiveness
together. “But that you may know that the
Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . ." He said to the
paralyzed man, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home."
The
healing serpent in the wilderness was God’s way of illustrating the power of
the cross. Both physical and spiritual
healing were tied together in Jesus.
When Jesus died on the cross, he not only covered our sins, he provided
for our healing. Matt 8:16-17
says “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him,
and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to
fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: "He took up our
infirmities and carried our diseases."
[1] 2 Kings 18:1-4 Hezekiah broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)