Healing as Liberation
NRSV
We live in a dot com, media-driven age and relationships once sealed with a kiss are now evaluated in measures of likes, followings, and numbers of friends. Technological advances are good; however, they have ushered in an age where a Christological understanding has been relegated to only what we see. In this paradigm, healing is recognized only when a condition is on the up swing. Does the fact that we are walking and talking give sufficient proof that God is good? Across the world, churches pray continuously and yet corruption is ubiquitous, cancer spreads, violence is constant, and generations are still without hope. The promises of Mark 16 seem further away when we read:
And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.1
So since the world is waiting for its next text message, what should we tweet about: the definition of recovery or the face of healing that might draw us closer to the scripture writers’ intents?
I challenge you to disconnect from the external, mundane practices of searching for God, and regain the healing power potential of connection within God—that relationship between Christ and the penitent heart. God’s healing goes beyond the physical, resulting in freedom. In this worldview, the evidence of healing is internal, not defined by the state of the human condition but rather by our ability to liberate others.
It was through a devastating stroke and partial paralysis that Karl Barth could see more definitively the presence of Jesus.2 In his time of incapacity he felt fortunate to embrace that which always had been available but was seldom associated with the senses—the Qodesh Hakodashim, or Holy of Holies. This is God’s residence in the ancient Jewish temple that can be realized in the heart of the created being. Access here is more about relationship than holiness. To understand this, let us liken our faith journey to that of the Bet HaMikdash,The Temple itself. Christ facilitates passage through the various rooms, and the end result is occupation in the inner place. Journey with me for a moment―The Temple has three main chambers. First, there is the Outer Court, or our initial encounter. This is where the moneychangers set up business; it’s meant to be a place of access, but not commitment, so healing doesn’t take place. Jesus is here, swinging a cord on our behalf, while sowing seed of self. It’s where, according to Matthew 13, some fall by the side of the road, and are soon eaten by the devourer.3 Unfortunately, it is the place where many Christians pause, sometimes for years, sometimes for life. Our search for wholeness pulls us further where we find the second chamber, the Court of the Priests, or the inner sanctum, where worship is intended. Here, sown seeds land on “rocky places”4 with “no depth of soil,”5 whose sprout is either scorched by the heat of demonic proximity, or choked by the prickly places in which we find ourselves. Here, too, the enemy through the ages has had access as well as the ability to touch and destroy. Likewise, only limited healing takes place here, as the power that is required to effect such, though being evident through us, does not come from works and is therefore subject to the frailties of our choices. But we press further to the third and final chamber, the Holy of Holies, where Christ is visible in the fullness according to the order of Melchizedek, the bringer of the bread and the wine mentioned throughout the sacred scriptures. Here we become so enveloped by the Shekinah that the enemy has no access, and seed is unobstructed, with no other choice but to germinate and flourish. Here, we recover, or return to our place of origin, and we are restored. This immutable transformation is not bound by sensual restraints nor predicated on visual confirmation. A person is whole and liberated from ailments of the human condition (social, economic, physical, etc.) and is therefore in a word, healed. Healing emerges from a conversion politic that is molded in love and manifests itself as freedom, and we are able to face any adversity with a resolve that it is well with my soul.
But what does this freedom mean? In his work Liberation Theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez writes:
On the one hand, there is a universalization of the presence of God: from being localized and linked to a particular people, it gradually extends to all the peoples of the earth. On the other hand, there is an internalization, or rather, an integration of this presence: from dwelling in places of worship, this presence is transferred to the heart of human history; it is a presence which embraces the whole person. Christ is the point of convergence of both processes.
Gutiérrez speaks here of the external becoming the internal; an inner dwelling not meant to be touched physically, nor can it be posted about in a blog. We cannot be made whole through virtual reality. This transcendence becomes actual existence resulting in a redirection of one’s hope. For Gutiérrez, it means “a break in the status quo"6 and “a social revolution."7 I agree. Let us break the status quo of not only our approach to God, but what we actually expect to receive from the experience. Let us declare a social revolution where our human interdependencies forge the footstones by which we arrive at the inner place, and victory is determined by how liberated we are in our being. Like truth, liberty begs to rise and be revealed. We don’t get here solely by an external connection, though the external is the first step to bringing us into the Outer Court. The pathway to this sacred community requires a disciplined study of the Word of God, a habit of meditation and a real desire to journey through the chambers. It requires that our meditations take us to Howard Thurman’s Inward Sea,8where one engages in a progression of prayer that results in direct communication with the Sustainer of Life. Through this journey we gain the ability to dissolve into Christ the way water melts salt without affecting its flavor. Here our world is alright. If we can find our way back to that Internal Being from which we emerged and were provided salvation, we overcome the external condition and become hope for tomorrow. When we are healed we can speak truth to powers from an authoritative, liberated voice and it listens. Healed is what made Dr. Martin Luther King write from a Birmingham jail cell concerning Blacks in America, “Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained."9 This place of remembrance is not achieved from a distance. It is the praxis of communion—it is intimate, up-close, and the “native climate of the human spirit."10 It is the place where we lay bare our will and conditions of the heart in order to surrender to the liberty that our world awaits. It’s where injustice and cruelty are numbed like a drink of gall from a hyssop cup, until they are broken. Healing is wholeness, wholeness is freedom, and freedom is light.
It is indeed time for a new relationship in Christ so that we can touch, pray, carry, and deliver the gospel message in such a way that we actually exercise the healing made available to set the captives free. It is still possible, despite our ever-changing environment and new ways of being. We must make the journey, for when we achieve this divine reconnection, we are not only whole, but we are back home, and we are free.
Notes
1. Mark 16:17-19.
2. Karl Barth and Gollwitzer, Helmut, Church Dogmatics, A Selection with Introduction, (Louisville : Westminster John Knox Press, 1994).
3. The references to “Sowing seed” refer to the parable of Jesus found in Matthew 13:3-9.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1988), 59.
7. Ibid.
8. Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart, (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1981), 15, 25-26.
9. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from A Birmingham Jail, Bates College online reference, http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html, last referenced March 31, 2014.
10. Thurman, 122.
