I have just finished reading a compelling and eye-opening book by Joanna Cannon, author of ‘The trouble with Goats and Sheep’ and ‘Three things about Elsie’ –( also fantastic reads), entitled ‘Breaking and Mending’, which is a junior doctor’s stories of compassion and burnout. I hope she won’t mind me borrowing her title for a series for Thought for the Day about the healing ministry of Jesus and how relevant it is for us today.
The ministry of Jesus is, and always has been, about mending what is broken, whether that is injustice, hunger, lives, hearts, bodies or spirits. In fact that sums up the ministry of Jesus.
His ministry of mending that which is broken reminds me of a verse from STF 322 which speaks of the characteristics of having faith in Jesus,
‘It makes the wounded spirit whole,
And calms the troubled breast;
T’is manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary, rest’.
Such was the broken state of the haemorrhaging woman, who, in the crowd, in desperation, caught hold of the hem of Jesus’ cloak. On discovering who had touched him, he said to the woman, ‘Go in peace, your faith has made you well’. ( Luke 5: 25 – 34)
We are hearing today of those who are desperate; who in Lockdown have had to wait for treatment to heal their broken bodies or broken minds. This is distressing for them, and distressing for their loved ones, and probably distressing too, for those who, now, because of the effects of the pandemic causing such a backlog, find that they are not able to offer their help in the usual way.
In her book, Joanna Cannon admits to something that she learned early on in her training as a doctor. ‘I learned that lives are not just saved on the floor of an A and E department or in a surgical theatre. Lives are also saved in quiet corners of a ward, on a sofa, in a garden. Lives can be saved by listening to someone who has spent their entire lives never being heard.’
This is where Jesus comes in. Not that he has ever been absent, of course. But when we reach out, in desperation, in our brokenness, to him, he immediately sees how it is. We hear his words of healing and wholeness, ‘Go in peace, your faith has made you well’.
As Joanna Cannon writes, ‘ I learned that returning a life to someone, very often has nothing to do with restoring a heartbeat’.