The Healing Balm

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 22, 2015

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Service of Wholeness

The Healing Balm

Jeremiah 8:22

Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
not been restored?

***********************

Gilead was a region along the east side

of the river Jordan.

It ran the length of the river from the Sea of Galilee

down to the Dead Sea.

                 

It had been known as a region

that produced healing balms, oils, and ointments,

long even before Jeremiah

sang his lament some 600 years

before the birth of our Lord.

In fact, we find a reference to Gilead

in the very first book of the Bible,

the Book of Genesis, a reference to

“… a caravan of Ishmaelites

coming from Gilead,

with their camels carrying gum,

balm, and resin,

on their way to carry it down to Egypt.”

(Genesis 37:25)

It is a reference that dates back before Moses,

back to the days of Isaac and Jacob and Joseph.

Jeremiah speaks for God wanting to heal God’s children,

heal them not of their cuts and their scrapes,

their physical wounds,

but of their waywardness.

As the spiritual song tells us,

the people needed healing

for their “sin sick souls”.

These were not “bad” people.

They were not criminals;

they were not vicious murderers.

But they had turned from God;

they were lost in faithlessness.

They denied it, of course;

denied vigorously

that they had turned from God,

that they needed healing.

They protested

that they were men and women of great faith,

honest and upright,

good and compassionate.

But God knew better.

God knew that the people

were deceiving only themselves.

And so God longed for their healing.

God longs for the healing of all his children.

God longs for all his children

to know wholeness and peace;

wholeness and peace that comes from faithfulness,

and from honesty before God.

The 40 days of Lent is God’s gift to us

to help us focus on our own need for healing,

for we are no different from the people

Jeremiah spoke to so long ago.

And our healing begins with repentance,

begins with our acknowledging our waywardness;

our acknowledging that we don’t want to be

like the people back in Jeremiah’s day,

people who “went astray but did not turn back.”

(Jeremiah 8:4)

God also knows we need healing

from the vicissitudes,

the ups and downs,

the twists and turns of every-day life;

the daily struggles we face that can knock us down,

that can scar, wound,

and sometimes injure deeply.

Relationships that sour;

hopes that are dashed,

ambition that is frustrated,

health that goes wrong,

sometimes terribly wrong.

Worry, anxiety,

fear, grief,

despair, shame.

stress, and more stress:

In the home, in school, in the workplace.

No one goes through life unwounded,

No one goes through life unscarred.

But our Lord stands with us,

ready with healing balm for our spirits,

a balm that can restore hope,

a balm that can lead us back to the path of joy.

“Come to me, all you who are weary

and carrying heavy burdens,

and I will give you rest,”

says our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Matthew 11:28)

If you cut yourself,

your wound will heal –

with time and care.

And so it is for those wounds

that are deep below the surface.

With God’s help, those wounds too can heal;

not in an instant, like water to wine,

but with time,

with work,

with faith,

and with God’s help.

God’s promise is sure.

As God said through the prophet Isaiah,

“I will heal them;
… Peace, peace, to the far and the near,

… I will heal them.

(Isaiah 57:18)

We can find healing in God’s love,

God’s grace given us in Jesus Christ

because we are God’s beloved.

“Do not fear, says the Lord our God,

for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name,

you are mine.

You are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you.”

(Isaiah 43:2ff)

What is it in your life that needs the healing balm

of God’s love,

the healing balm of Christ’s presence,

the healing balm of the Spirit’s fresh breeze?

Healing can begin here, now

at our Lord’s Table

as we are renewed and refreshed in Spirit.

                          

And healing can continue in community,

within the Body of Christ.

And this morning each circle reflects the body,

each circle is the body,

the community of Christ.

As we share Communion,

ask for God’s healing Spirit to wash over you.

Trust that just as a cut or scrape will in time heal,

the deepest scars within can also heal.

“God is the source of our strength,

and hope

and courage

with which we are helped in our time of need.”

(Rabbi Harold Kushner)

God will not eliminate your problems or mine;

What God will do is foster healing;

as Jesus walks with you,

to remind you that God’s everlasting,

everloving arms are beneath you,

supporting you, lifting you up.

It is no exaggeration to say

that there are times in our lives

when the very air we breathe

can feel scorched and scorching.

(T. Loder)

But God is with us – you and me –

with his cooling soothing balm of love,

balm of hope,

balm of healing.

Let us pray:

“To you, O God,

we lift up our souls, our hearts, our lives.

In you, O God, and you alone, we trust….

Incline your ear to us,

for in you we find refuge,

in you we find hope,

in you we find strength,

in you we find peace.

You are the God of our salvation.

In your presence there is fullness of joy;

in your presence there is healing;

Empty us of both pride and pain

and lead us to wholeness,

lead us to peace,

lead us to that peace which surpasses

all understanding,

that peace that comes from you

through your Son,

our healing Lord,

Jesus the Christ.

In his name we pray.                                                   

Amen

(From Psalms 25 & 31)