4 Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by His wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53 is the most astonishing description and prediction of the death of Christ on the Cross embedded in the heart of the Old Testament. Many know its resonant words from Handel's Messiah,
The Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, wrote about this text like this:
Gospel healing is so very simple; our text describes it: "With his stripes (wounds) we are healed." These six words contain the marrow of the gospel, and yet scarcely one of them contains a second syllable. They are words for plain people, and in them there is no affectation of mystery or straining after the profound.
I looked the other day into old Culpepper's Herbal. It contains a marvellous collection of wonderful remedies. Had this old herbalist's prescriptions been universally followed, there would not long have been any left to prescribe for. Many of his receipts contain from twelve to twenty different drugs, each one needing to be prepared in a peculiar manner. I think I once counted forty different ingredients in one single draught. Very different are these receipts with their elaboration of preparation, from the Biblical prescriptions which effectually healed the sick such as these: "Take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil," or that other one: "Go and wash in Jordan seven times"; or that other: "Take up thy bed and walk."
One cannot but admire the simplicity of truth, while falsehood conceals her deformities with a thousand trickeries. If you would know the true way of having your souls healed, go to the word of God, and study such a text as this: "With his stripes (wounds) we are healed"...
Modern medicine began during the first years of the 20th century. Complex holistic medicine like that of Culpeper was replaced by a merger of the highly profitable petroleum industry and pharmaceutical drugs using plants. How successful has this merger been? Does anyone balance the books and compare the side effects with the apparent benefits? If they did, should we not go back, in part at least to the older, simpler, cheaper, time-tested remedies? Surely the best healing is the simplest?
I went in the late 80s to the London Healing Mission, during the depths of chronic fatigue, mostly for the sake of a curious friend. Most unexpectedly, because I am someone who shies away from showy, dramatic healings, I experienced a healing myself which took me up a whole level on my road back to health and financial viability. This healing, which, astonishingly, felt like someone's hand literally reaching inside my head while I fell backwards (happily on to a sofa) lasted no more than a minute. It was at a spiritual level, as well as 'chemical' level and visible. I recall when my mother met me later that day, she took one look at me and blurted out "What happened to you!?". I had clearly become more alive in some discernible way. In fact, I did not realise beforehand that I had needed healing of the spirit as well as the body. Afterwards, I knew I had.
What healing is more sudden and effective and simpler than the healing at the foot of the Cross? What we need, at the deepest level is indeed spiritual healing. What are our deep griefs and sorrows that He "carries for us" on the Cross but spiritual griefs and sorrows such as:
- our rebellion against Him
- our detemination to do it "my way" rather than asking for His guidance - leading to 'dead ends', a sense of emptiness and alientation and finally despair
- our arrogance, obstinacy, pride, idolatry
- our disappointments, in ourselves and others
- our failures, flaws and faults
- our lies, our self deception, our half truths
- our guilt and complacency
- our temptations and self defeats
- our fear and anger
- the scars of evil done to us
- our sadness over things that cannot be undone.
What is His healing ministry to us but spiritual healing?
Easter is an ideal time to remember and reach out to this kind of healing because it is what we most need, even if we do not realise it. His healing is not made from drugs, or plants, or toxins or nanoparticles, but from something far deeper which is in tune with the Love that made and sustains the Universe.
It is only accessible by way of the Cross because the sorrows He bore for us He bore on the Cross. By turning to Him, in faith, we do not have to bear these burdens ourselves and by letting Him take them instead, we are healed of them - by his wounds. "Simple", as the advert says.
If you have not considered it. possibly now is the time?
Illustration above is:
Public Domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3413241
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