What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god!
Shakespeare’s Hamlet: full of admiration for the human race. Taken by the beauty and grace of the human form; captivated by our dexterity and our almost boundless versatility. Hamlet is like James Weldon Johnson, who imagines that day of Creation when God stepped out in space and said, "I’ll make me a man", and God outdid Himself and said, "That’s good; that’s real good".
Humanity is, without argument, the very crown of God’s creation.
The only trouble is that we get sick. Illness attacks the beauty of God’s creation; sickness tarnishes our perfection. We get sick and ultimately we die. Although this is true not only of human beings but also of all creation, we are the ones who know that we were made for more than that. We were destined, in the mind and heart of our creator, for eternity. Says the poet, "Thou wilt not leave us in the dust; Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die"
No, in the ultimate sense we were not made to die, nor were we made to be sick. We were made good, we were made whole, in the perfect image of our Creator. But we do get sick. We are not whole. Why not? And what are we to do about our sickness?
In the Advent season we think about the coming of Christ. Advent is a season for hoping and dreaming. It is a season during which all the fears and anxieties built up during the past year are set aside, as we understand in some fresh way that God has come, Emmanuel, the Word made flesh. Advent is a season for healing, for starting over, for feeling the world’s freshness because Christ has come. God is become man, whole and complete.
This year we are going to use Advent to think about health, the health Christ brings. The thesis of all that we will do during the Advent season is that when Christ comes, He comes to make us whole; He can restore us to fellowship with the Father. He comes as the Great Physician to give us health; He comes as the balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. It is Christ who is the giver of health.
The theme text which will inform each of these services is one which Luke gives us about the child Jesus, "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in divine and human favor." That is, Jesus grew in intellectual ability (wisdom), in physical strength (stature), in spiritual maturity (divine favor), and in emotional maturity (human favor). I will be preaching about physical health, stature, today; and about Christ the wisdom of God on Christmas Day. Rev. Arnold will bring two messages on Christ the giver of spiritual maturity and the giver of emotional health. Taken together, we believe that we can share a pattern of health which God intends and which Christ is bringing.
There will be a missions note in these messages also. The 67th Psalm, from which our theme is drawn, speaks of God’s "saving health among all nations". We will talk about Christ’s mission of salvation and health for all peoples. The coming of Christ means health, not just for us who know Him, but for all peoples.
Now, just in case someone is already beginning to wonder whether the pastor has turned into a faith healer, slapping people upside the head and selling prayer cloths, let me remind you that the Scriptures are replete with stories of healing. I had scores of texts from which I could have chosen today. Every page of the Gospels tells us of the Jesus who went about teaching, preaching, and healing. There can be no question about the Christ who is the giver of health. But what does that mean, and how are we today to find healing?
None of the Biblical texts is more attractive and more filled with meaning than the one in John’s Gospel, chapter 5, where there is the man at the pool of Bethesda. He had been sitting there for some thirty-eight years, awaiting his chance to be healed. Let’s listen in on the story:
John 5:2-9, 17
In 1876 a young physician, John Harvey Kellogg, fresh out of Bellevue Medical College in New York, came to Battle Creek, Michigan. There he took over a small center called the Western Health Reform Institute. Kellogg had been recruited by the leaders of the fledgling Seventh-day Adventist denomination for this task. They and he were convinced that Americans were destroying their health. Kellogg and the Adventists believed that we meat-eating, caffeine-drinking, intestine-neglecting, pampered Americans were ruining ourselves and, not incidentally, our relationship to God with poor health habits.
John Harvey Kellogg and his Battle Creek Sanitarium, developed a regimen of dieting, exercise, light baths, water baths, and 200 other kinds of baths, as well as music, dancing, and surgery, all of it in the pursuit of God’s gift of good health. You can thank Dr. Kellogg for inventing corn flakes and peanut butter, without which America would have no breakfast food and no after-school snacks!
A recent film chronicles this story. It’s called "The Road to Wellville". I cannot exactly recommend it to you, first of all, because I haven’t seen it, but second, because I gather it is replete with unsavory bathroom references. Not the most pleasant presentation. So I’m calling my message, “The Road to Wellville", Rated G. Rated for God. Because I believe that God as expressed in Christ Jesus wants us to travel the road to Wellville. He wants us to have and to pursue good physical health.
I
Notice in the story we’ve read that the first issue Dr. Jesus confronts head on is His patient’s motivation. One would certainly think that anyone who had sat around the healing pool for 38 years wanted to get well. Why else would you keep on keeping on like that?
Well, Jesus penetrated to the heart of this man’s motivation by looking him straight in the eye and asking him, "Do you want to be made well?" Do you really want to be made well? The road to Wellville starts with a strong and faithful motivation.
You see, ill health is often a vicious combination of long-ingrained habits and a sheer lack of faith. Let me repeat that for you. III health is often a combination of staying stuck with bad habits; and of sheer lack of faith. Do you want to be made well? Many of us are not answering that with a resounding "Yes." We’re saying "No" to that.
Sometimes it is easier and more comfortable to take on the identity of our sickness than it is to fight it. Easier to live as the cripple down by the pool than to get up and get on with life. Easier and more rewarding to live as the fellow whose health keeps him from doing anything than to focus on overcoming the handicap. The key element in having physical health is so to want it that we will set aside bad habits and will step out in faith.
Let me illustrate. It’s no accident that this message is being preached on the Sunday after our annual exercise in self-indulgence called Thanksgiving Day. How many of us - - and I’m certainly going to put my hand up -- how many of us said, "I’m going to forget about dieting, I’m going to stop worrying about healthy eating, I’m going to write off exercising for today, and I’m going to feast. Going to pig out!" How many? I thought so.
Well, my hand’s going to stay up, because I’m going on to ask how many of us use that line of reasoning not just at Thanksgiving Day, but at Christmas, on our birthdays, on the fourth of July, at the church picnic, or on a whim at the nearest pizza parlor? Any excuse will do!
No, I am not a devotee of the Adventists’ doctrines, but John Harvey Kellogg and his colleagues surely had some things right about our self-indulgent habits.
Now my point is not really food or diet. My point is that, like the man who had sat at the well for 38 years, knowing how to be healed, but sticking with his unproductive habits, you and I are making ourselves sick because we will not take the initiative and exercise the faith to get unstuck.
Let me be very practical for a moment. I am no physician and no nurse, no medical practitioner of any kind. But as a Christian preacher, I do have the obligation to layout the spiritual dimensions of health. There are things we must not do to our bodies if we expect to remain well. Some of these things become habits, and today I simply challenge them with Jesus’ question, "Do you want to be made well?"
You would expect me to mention narcotics, mood-altering drugs. They are dangerous to use and devastating to abuse. If you are on drugs, I ask you, "Do you want to be made well?" If you do, we will help you get into a treatment program. You just have to come and ask.
And I must speak of alcohol. I am well aware that many of us here today use alcohol. I am confident that many in this room see no particular harm and think we can handle it. Alcohol use was once a major no-no among Baptist Christians, but of late it seems to be fashionable to say very little about it. In all honesty, some of us seem to feel we’ve risen above legalism; some of us seem to think that we’re smarter than those strict old codes.
Well, I want to say this very carefully, because I do not want to come off as puritanical. I do not want to make someone who is having an alcohol problem feel as though the pastor condemns him. The last thing in the world I want to do is to drive away anybody from the house of God, where there is help. But I just have to say, "Give it up." Give it up. Alcohol cannot help you; it can only hurt you. Whatever momentary pleasures or social acceptability alcohol may provide here and now are paid for a thousand fold later on. There are people in this room who know this far, far better than I do.
Do you want to be made well? If you do, then alcohol is a contradiction. Give it up.
Ill health comes about by sticking to bad habits and worse faith. The road to Wellville begins with the strong motivation to break old habits and to step out in faith.
II
But now, back to our Biblical story. Notice the man’s response to Jesus’ penetrating question. "Do you want to be made well?" "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me."
It is not only that ill health is cultivated by bad habits and worse faith; it is also that ill health is perpetuated by neglect and selfishness. This is a sick world, in large measure, because those of us with resources have allowed it to be sick. We are guilty of neglect and selfishness.
Did you see those things in the text? Neglect: "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up". No one seems to care. And selfishness: "While I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." Always at the back of the bus.
Men and women, in this Advent season, when we think of the word made flesh, coming into our space and time, and loving us; when we remember how God in compassion sent Christ Jesus in order that the whole world through Him might be saved, we have to confront the sins of neglect and selfishness.
How can we continue to live in a city with one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world? That is neglect.
How can we pass laws which will deny health care to the poorest of the poor? That is selfishness.
How can we fail, year after year, promise after promise, to create some form of national health insurance? I do not propose to know what the best system is or how to make one that works, but I do know neglect when I see it.
How can we permit the greed of a few of our health care providers so to corrupt the system that some physicians bill for nominal visits, some hospitals charge outrageous prices for incidental services, some patients and their lawyers sue for incredible damages? I don’t know how to write the laws, but I know selfishness when I see it.
How can this city, the Nation’s Capital, seriously speak of closing or curtailing its public hospital? We as citizens and voters have permitted this neglect, and it is the poor who pay for it in poor health care.
How can we, the Christian people of this city, stand idly by while more and more physicians settle in for lucrative specialties in affluent suburbs? Are we rewarding selfishness? Said the man, "While I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." And sucks up the resources I need.
Let’s admit it. The man answered Jesus’ question well. It was not only that he was stuck in his own losing battle. It was also that he was victimized by neglect and selfishness. And the road to Wellville will not be open for all until we as a people decide to make quality health care for all persons a priority.
Christ is the bringer of health; "thy saving health among all nations."
III
But now the road to Wellville, I said, is rated G. G for God. What, really, does God have to do with all of this? Why can we say, in this Advent season, that Christ is the bringer of health?
Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat, and walk." At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
What happens when someone obeys this Christ? Did you hear His clear, unequivocal command? "Stand up, take your mat, and walk."
I am convinced that Christ wants His people to stand up, take their mats, and walk. I am persuaded that our Savior wants to heal us. We simply have to take Him at His word and do what He commands.
I don’t have time to develop this in detail, but let me layout a few things, which we can discuss on Wednesday evenings.
We in the church ought to hear that command. We need to challenge young people to enter the helping professions: medicine, ministry, social work, teaching, anything which helps others and promotes health. We’ve got to take a stand against the not ion that the aim and the end of a college education is to earn big bucks. We need to challenge young people to do something for the healing of the nations. Parents, lock up your sons and daughters if you don’t want them to hear this, because I intend to hammer away at this for a long time to come. Some of our young people can respond to the call of God to make a difference.
I’m so pleased that one of our young physicians is intentionally working toward a career in public health, where she may not make a huge salary, but she will make a huge difference. “Stand up", young people, "take your mat and walk."
And, not incidentally, that includes a definite challenge for missions. It would be inexcusably neglectful and selfish if were to develop our resources and then hold them for ourselves. "Thy saving health among all nations."
Some of you know that last Sunday, after Dr. Greenway spoke, I really got upset over what I saw as a blasé, indifferent attitude toward the needs of the world. Somebody asked me this week if I had gotten over my disappointment. My answer is that I hope I never get over being disappointed when God’s people do not have their hearts melted by God’s call. I just think we’re missing so much when we do not respond to the possibilities of missions. My wife’s sister and her husband give up their vacation year after year to take youth from their church to Mexico and conduct pediatric clinics. By now their daughter has earned a pharmacy degree, and she has something to give too. They get more joy out of that than I can begin to describe. The road to Wellville leads all sorts of places where there are sick people to be healed.
More: stand up, take your mat and walk. We in the church ought to be working on health issues, from the personal and the private ones to the profoundly public ones. I intend to write letters and do what I can in this new Congress to make at least one voice heard on this issue. But we Christians need to be heard on this.
Still more: we as a church need to be a health provider of sorts. We have done or are doing a few things. At one time or another we’ve done a little of everything from teaching mothers how to care for their babies to showing senior citizens how to care for their feet! We have exercise classes two nights a week and we’ve talked about organizing a walking club. But we could do more, much more, for the health of our community. It just means that we have to put a priority on that kind of activity. It means we have to hear the clear command of Christ, "Stand up, take your mat, and walk."
Above all, we in the church ought to be what we are: we need to be the community of faith. That means we need to bring together faith and wholeness and become channels of the Spirit of God. If Christ is the bringer of health, then we have a responsibility to open up those channels by which the Spirit of Christ can work. I am talking about prayer and healing; if the term doesn’t scare you, faith healing.
One of my dreams is that the day might come when Takoma Park Baptist Church will become a center for holistic spiritual healing. A place where, when we pray for your illness, it is not just a vague and perfunctory reference to God’s will. A place where counseling and prayer and spiritual disciplines as well as medical practice are so joined together that everyone is treated in mind, body, and spirit. My dream would be that we would be so filled with faith and so comfortable in our willingness to be used of God, that we would hold healing services in this sanctuary. Now don’t jump to conclusions; I’m not talking about some sort of bizarre, exploitive show, but simply a time of sheer faith and openness to the healing Christ. Stand up, take up our mats, and walk, with faith in the Christ who brings healing. And He will bless us if we but trust Him. Did you hear Him at the end of this story? "By Father is still working, and I also am working." Do you believe that?
The road to Wellville. Rated G, G for God. Wouldn’t you like to travel the road to Wellville? I would.
I’m not willing to stay stuck in bad habits and worse faith. I want to travel the road to Wellville, where Christ points me.
I’m not willing to allow neglect and selfishness to poison the life of this city and the lives of many nations. I want to travel the road to Wellville, and bring others with me, where Christ has gone before.
I’m not willing for fringe groups like the Adventists and the Christian Scientists and the Pentecostals to monopolize spiritual health. I’m not ready for healing to be the property of flashy television evangelists. I want us too to travel the road to Wellville, rated G for God, for our God promises in Advent "saving health among all nations."
The Christ of this Advent season assures us, "My Father is still working, and I also am working."
