Jehovah Rophe - God Our Healer
On Saturday, April 26, 1986, an experiment was under way in the city of Pripyat, Ukraine. This experiment was designed to test how the local nuclear power plant would react following a complete loss of main electrical power. The power plant had 4 nuclear reactors, each of which required 11,800,000 gallons of water per hour to be circulated as coolant. Without electrical power, the coolant pumps would be unable to operate until the backup generators came online, which typically took around a minute. The test was intended to determine if a method they developed to provide temporary power during that minute would actually work.
It didn’t.
At 12:43 AM Moscow Standard Time, Reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station began to overheat. The water -- which was now no longer circulating throughout the plant -- became superheated steam. This rose the temperature of the reactor and caused the power output to increase. This caused more water to turn into steam, starting a chain reaction.
The plant personnel recognized this, so they started an emergency shutdown of the reactor. Shutdown takes 18-20 seconds. However, the method used to emergency shut down a reactor requires the use of graphite rods. Graphite is highly flammable.
I’m sure you can guess what happened next.
As soon as the graphite rods hit the superheated reactor core, they burst into flame. This caused a huge explosion, completely destroying the Reactor 4 building and severely damaging surrounding buildings. At the time of the explosion, the temperature of the core was estimated to be more than 2200 degrees fahrenheit. This was hot enough to melt the graphite, causing radioactive lava flows to enter the plumbing of the reactor and further irradiate the building.
The first responders to the explosion received approximately 6,000 millisieverts of radiation. To put things in perspective, the amount of radiation a person absorbs from a normal X-Ray is 0.1 millisieverts. These firemen, soldiers, and medical personnel died of radiation poisoning within a few weeks. The poor quality of photographs from the cleanup has nothing to do with the technology of the time -- the high radiation levels literally ruined the film.
The explosion shot radioactive material around 100,000 square kilometers in area, causing heavy, black-colored rain to fall. Estimates in the Ukraine and surrounding countries indicate that over one million people could have been affected by the radiation.
In response, the Soviet Government evacuated everyone in a 2600 kilometer area, completely abandoning the city of Pripyat and other nearby towns in two countries. They called this the “Chernobyl Exclusion Zone”. Surprisingly, the other three reactors were still operational after the explosion, so the government would bus workers in and out of the Zone until the year 2000, when the plant was finally completely shut down for good.
The Chernobyl accident is considered the worst man-made nuclear accident in history. We learned a lot from Chernobyl, but one thing that happened as a result of the creation of the Zone that no one expected.
Wildlife flourished. In 2014, for the first time in centuries, European Brown Bears were found in the Zone, living normally with no obvious effects from the radiation. Scientists have no idea how they even got there. A herd of Przewalski’s (sheh-VAL-sky’s) Horses, an endangered subspecies of horse thought to be extinct in the wild, was found. Lynx, deer, boars, cranes, and other wild animals have thrived in the Exclusion Zone, surviving with little to no mutations from the high radiation. This is amazing! Scientists from all over the world are risking the radiation to study the animals living in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, wondering why and how they’re surviving so well despite the fact that the ground, their food, and literally even the air they breathe is poisonous.
The Chernobyl accident, and especially the wildlife living in the Exclusion Zone, reminds me of another of God’s names. Two weeks ago we started with Jehovah, which means “I AM.” Last week we discussed Jehovah Jireh, which means “God Our Provider”. Tonight we will talk about Jehovah Rophe, or “God Our Healer”. Turn with me to the book of Exodus, chapter 15, verses 22 - 26. The Israelites had just walked out of the Red Sea and celebrated their escape from Egypt.
“22Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) 24So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”
25Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.
There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. 26He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”
Wow, that didn’t take long, did it? In verse 21 they’re literally singing God’s praises for bringing them through the terrible trial of escaping from Pharaoh and his army. Moments earlier, Moses pulled the Red Sea back together, drowning Pharaoh’s army and ensuring the safety of the entire Israelite people. Three verses later they’re already whining and complaining!
Just as a side note, I can definitely see Moses as that father on a road trip who refuses to pull over for bathroom breaks. “Water? Water! You should have gotten water before we left Egypt! Bathroom? You’re going to have to hold it until we reach the promised land!” It is interesting, though, that Moses didn’t cry out to the Lord until after everyone around him started to complain...but that’s a different message entirely.
The Israelites have already forgotten what God they serve. Remember, it was only a few minutes since they saw a God making a miraculous intervention in their lives to save them from certain death. Not only that, but they already knew that God was Jehovah Jireh, God the Provider! They knew the story of Abraham, otherwise Moses introducing God as the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” wouldn’t have made much sense. They knew that God has provided in the past and that one of His names is literally “God Will Provide”. So why were they grumbling about the water?
When you’re in the middle of a trial, sometimes it’s easy to forget God’s provision and begin to worry.
How many of you have had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day; and through it all ask yourself, “Where’s God in all this?” Be honest! I know I have. When bad things are happening, it’s difficult to remember that God is in control! It is for this reason that we should remember the names of God. When it seems like things aren’t going your way, remember that God Provides and God Heals.
But what does that really mean, “God Heals”? The word Rophe, in Hebrew, literally means “to heal”. Simple enough. It can also be translated, though, as “to repair” or “to restore”, or to refer to a physician. I’m sure some of you have heard people referring to God or Jesus as the “Great Physician” -- this is what they mean. But notice how God heals the Israelites -- there is no mention of physical healing.
You can’t tell me that an entire nation, filled with old people, children, and adults who have been literally beaten for most of their life, just escaped from the world’s first superpower without so much as a stubbed toe or a twisted ankle! Keep in mind Moses intervened while an Egyptian was whipping an Israelite before all of this happened -- at the very least, they had wounds from the whips and sore muscles. But Scripture doesn’t say a single word about this, though God refers to Himself as the “God Who Heals”. What exactly, then, was He referring to?
Remember that Rophe can also mean “to restore?” God wanted the Israelites to know that He will restore what is bitter in their lives! Just like in English, “Bitter” in Hebrew can refer to a taste or one’s attitude. By performing this miracle at Marah, God proved that He can restore, or heal, both kinds of bitterness!
The bitterness of the spring was not the Israelites’ fault. They had no control over that.
The bitterness in their hearts, though, WAS their fault. They allowed their situation to override their faith, and their attitudes reflected that.
God is Jehovah Rophe, the Healer, the Great Physician! God healed the spring of the bitter water, and healed the hearts of the Israelites of their bitterness. In the same way, God healed the earth from a disaster caused by man -- Chernobyl.
Remember how scientists have no idea where the European brown bear came from? I think it was God healing and restoring the landscape of Northern Ukraine after the sin of man -- in this case, arrogance -- destroyed it.
If God can make bitter water sweet again, can improve the mood of an entire nation of people, and bring back multiple endangered species despite an incredibly radioactive area, then how easy must it be for Him to heal and restore what’s bitter in our own lives?
It is easy! But remember the promise God made to the Israelites in verse 26: “He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.” The Israelites were freaking out, wondering if they would ever be on the receiving end of one of God’s plagues! God said this to reassure them that, so long as they obey his commands and listen to His voice, He would not send any plagues their way.
This was Gods way of restoring and healing their future.
God never said that He would heal every sniffle and solve every problem that came our way if we only obey. What He said was that He would protect our future if we obey Him! 2000 years ago He made good on that very promise by sending His son down to die on the cross for our sins. Without that sacrifice, our future would look very, very dark. God restored our lives by removing the sin from our lives like he removed the bitterness from the waters at Marah.
What bitterness do you have in your life? What things are going on right now where you feel like God is distant? Let God heal these areas of your life! Let Jesus restore your lives from the bondage of sin!
