Jim, as I will call him, was a successful pastor, acclaimed for his preaching skill, sought out for his wisdom, almost worshipped by the flocks of young adults who came to the church he served. It seemed he could do no wrong and that he had it all together, from here on out. Nothing, it seemed, would derail him. But then, one day, after a series of baffling illnesses, the physician spoke words of terror. Your little daughter has cancer; there's very little we can do for her. Likely she will not live. And, after several months of hope and then of dread, of feeling that the disease was whipped and then of knowing that it wasn't, the child did die. Of course it was tough, of course it was most difficult for him and his wife to handle, but everyone felt they would handle it. Jim would come through. And it seemed that he did; it seemed that both of them would make it.
Then certain telltale signs began to show up. Jim’s wife could not shake off all that had happened. She began to pay frequent and lengthy visits to the cemetery. When Jim was called to a different church, she was reluctant to go. She could not leave behind that child's grave, she could not cut the one slender thread that still tied her to the child. And though Jim and his wife did move to a new church field, though his work there was acclaimed too, it was not long before Jim announced that he was tired, that he was fatigued beyond all hope of endurance. He would have to resign that church and do something else, something quieter, something more inward.
I will spare the details, but it became clear there was a time bomb ticking here. Eventually this pastor and his wife divorced. Eventually he went through a series of jobs and ministries. Eventually he left the denomination of which he had been so vital a part and entered an entirely different ministry. So many surprises, so many changes, but both Jim and his wife had become wounded spirits.
Wounded spirits. Wounded spirits are those men and women into whose life something enters that changes them seemingly forever. Wounded spirits are those persons whose life and whose well-being is so invaded by forces beyond their control that they become disabled, disconnected. They cannot function quite like they used to, they cannot shake off the effect of the tragedy, they cannot pull all the tangled threads together; they are wounded spirits.
Losing a child for Jim and his wife and for many others makes for a wounded spirit. For someone else it might be having been fired from a job; in our society a man’s identity and selfhood is so wrapped up in his work that if you are fired, if you are told that your work is unacceptable, you may be so wounded that you cannot get past it. You may not be able to accept so powerful a blow and get on with it all. You become a wounded spirit.
For yet others it might be a divorce that creates the wounded spirit. For someone else it could be a financial disaster that is so crushing that you cannot feel healed even though your bank account by now is healthy. Still, as in the Great Depression of the 1930's, people's lives and hearts become so profoundly affected that they never quite regain their balance. They are wounded spirits.
Again, war for many has become the great devastator of the spirit. How it still astounds us that scores of men and women arrive at that great dark gash in the earth on the Mall and pour out the anguish of their wounded spirits because of Vietnam. A whole generation of Americans now in their thirties and early forties carries a wound in the spirit because of the napalm nightmares and gook gunning they were caught in, and for hundreds these wounded spirits have not healed.
On this day before Pearl Harbor Day, the 7th of December 1941, a day that shall live in infamy; on this day that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev meet to hammer out some kind of arms limitation treaty, we do well to remember that in the heart and consciousness of the Russian nation there is a wounded spirit because of two World Wars, and that however we feel about the Soviet Union politically, however we understand Communism or worry about evil empires, we must remember that the wounded spirit of the Russian people is saying "Never again." Never again will we lose ten million people, ten million brothers and sisters, husbands and fathers, wives and mothers, to the scourge of an invading army. The wounded spirit of a whole nation has not healed.
All across our world and across the landscape of our lives we need the peace which might heal such wounded spirits. Men and women of all races and classes, all nationalities and persuasions yearn for a deep and abiding peace, an end to our restlessness, a quiet in the heart. Where will it come from and who will bring it to us? Who can make the wounded spirit whole?
More than 2700 years ago the prophet Isaiah spoke of one who would accomplish this, of one who would cure the wounded spirits of men and women whose grief would not pass, one who would overrule the warrior’s oppression. Isaiah sang, "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined … For the yoke of his burden and the rod of his oppressor thou hast broken .. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, for he will, you see, listen, deeply listen, to the wounded spirits of those for whom the cruelties of human tragedy have opened and left running the sores of sorrow. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor.
And his name shall be called Prince of Peace, for he will establish justice and righteousness, he will labor in the minds of statesmen and in the hearts of ordinary people, he will work in the great currents of history and even in the stubborn wills of the godless to bring peace.
Who is this one? Who is he who is named wonderful counselor? Who is this prince of peace?
God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. God was, in the one born in Bethlehem, moving to make the wounded spirit whole. For no longer are we presented with abstractions and principles and admonitions; no, we are given flesh and blood. No longer do the wounded spirits of this world have to be content with those who would say to them, "Hey, get yourself together, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." No more casual preachments, no more guilt tripping, no more resigning ourselves to living with time bombs in our lives; no, now the word made flesh, come into our world, our lives, identifying with us, being with us, concrete, specific, here and now.
Are you following this? Do you catch the meaning of this? Our wounded spirits will not be made whole by good ideas or right thinking or transcendental meditation or new age self-help spirituality. Our wounded spirits, the world's thirst for peace, will not be satisfied by libraries full of political science books or armories chock full of sophisticated weapons systems. I tell you, it is in this fragile, helpless, Jesus child of Bethlehem that healing lies, for in him even God becomes vulnerable. Even God accepts a wounded spirit and comes here right along side us to be a wonderful counselor, a prince of peace. Even God is a wounded spirit.
For, you see, he is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, he is despised and rejected of men, he is a wounded spirit. But, in the luminous phrase made popular by Henri Nouwen, he is more than a wounded spirit. He is a wounded healer. And all you and I have to do is to accept him, receive him, own him, love him. All we are required to do is to let him work in us and with us.
Says the Gospel of Luke, "The day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace."
Says the wounded spirit, "I don't know if I can go on. I'll never be the same again." But says the Wonderful Counselor, to use the words of our theme hymn, "He makes the wounded spirit whole and calms the troubled breast; 'Tis manna to the hungry soul and to the weary rest"
Says the wounded spirit, "But there is Angola and Afghanistan, Nicaragua and South Africa, the Persian Gulf and Oakdale prison." But says the Prince of Peace, "Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end".
Say we, wounded spirits that we are, "But how shall I know? How may this child of hope and promise be with me? How may my hands touch his and how may his flesh and blood connect with me?" Then says He, "Come ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish; come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel; here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish. Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." "Here … here see the bread of life; see waters flowing Forth from the throne of God, pure from above. Come to the feast of love, come ever knowing, earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove."
