Scripture: Exodus 15:22-27; 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Psalm 103:3
Theme: My Name is …. Jehovah Rapha
INTRO:
Grace and peace this morning in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
“Go wash your face and hands and supper will be ready in just a few minutes.”
I cannot tell you how many times I heard my mom say those words. She was very serious about us washing our faces and hands before we had a meal and before we would get ready to go to sleep.
I am sure that there are many here this morning that can testify to something similar that was said by their mom, grandmother or caretaker.
“Go wash your face and hands and come on and let’s have – breakfast, lunch, dinner or supper.”
But did you know that before 1843 such an idea as washing your hands was strange to many medical doctors around the world.
In 1843 Oliver Wendell Holmes in the US and in 1846 Ignaz Semmelweis in Europe strongly promoted the idea that all doctors should wash their hands before they operated on a patient. They even suggested that one of the greatest things any doctor could do for their patient was to wash their hands.
Most of the medical community listened but concluded that mandatory hand washing was unnecessary. It would take a few more years and the medical findings by John Lister in 1867 and other doctors to final convince the majority of the medical community that one of the best things that they could do for their patients was to wash their hands before they examined people and especially before they would perform an operation. By 1875 dedicated handwashing was a common practice.
The nursing community under the leadership of Florence Nightengale was a little ahead of the doctors. Not necessarily because they saw it as a medical necessity – washing one’s hand and face – but because they discovered that the more presentable they were (washed faces, hands, tidy clothes) the more their patients would trust them and obey them.
So, let’s see – it’s only been around a 150 years that nurses and doctors realized that it was essential that they should wash their hands before seeing their patients and especially before they would do surgery.
I don’t know about you, but I am glad that I didn’t live back in those days. I am very glad that we live in a time when we understand the value of washing our hands, our faces and the rest of us.
When we read the stories of ancient Israel, it might surprise us that washing one’s hands, face and body along with doing everything possible to be clean was seen as a way of worshipping and serving God. All you have to do is to read the book of Leviticus and you see how many times the LORD instructed his people to be careful of diseases and infections. Numerous passages deal with the idea of practicing a measure of quarantine and isolation along with the proper use of water and cleaning material.
Now, many people believe that there is a scripture verse that says – “Cleanliness is next to godliness” and while those words don’t appear in scripture the overall thought of cleanliness is a part of God’s plan for humans and for all of creation.
I want to talk to you today about another name of God – this time it was not given to God by a human, but it was God Himself revealing this part of His nature –
Verse 27 – “for I am the LORD who heals you”
Moses had just led the people through the Red Sea into the wilderness of Shur. After three days the people were beginning to panic. While they had taken a certain amount of water with them from Egypt, they were getting concerned that soon they would be without water. All around them all they could see was wilderness with no visible rivers, creeks or even water wells in sight.
These were people who had grown up around the Nile River. They had been raised near lots of water. They were not used to all this sparse land with no visible sight of water. It was rather unsettling and frightening.
The Bible tells us that they did spot a body of water but discovered that it was bitter water. It couldn’t be used for drinking.
They started to panic.
+Had the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY rescued them from slavery only to murder all of them in the wilderness?
+Was the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY no better than Anubis or Mot whose main jobs were to lead people from death to the underworld?
+Was Moses just a prophet of disaster and doom – 10 plagues and now water that couldn’t be used for drinking?
These exiles had lived in Egypt for centuries being immersed in Egyptian culture. All around them were temples and statues honoring this god or goddess. How much all of this had adjusted their way of understanding the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY we don’t know. All we know is that over the next 40 years they would learn a great deal about what it meant to be God’s People.
This encounter allowed them to understand something vital about the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. He is not only the Good God of Creation and the One who led them out of Egypt, but He is also the one who brings healing and wholeness. He is Jehovah Rapha.
Throughout the rest of scripture, we see God continuing to reveal that thought and humans testifying to that reality.
Let’s take some time this morning and look at all of this in a little more detail.
I. Our God is Jehovah Ralpha – He is the God who heals
That sounds nice doesn’t it.
After all, who in their right mind would want to serve a god who brings destruction, disease, decay and death.
Who for example would want to serve a god or a being who brings cancer, heart failures, obesity, depression, blindness and countless other maladies to creation and especially to humans.
But then again, that is exactly what evil, the devil and demons do isn’t it?
Jesus called the Devil a liar, a thief and a murderer.
When you take the time to sit down and think about it fully and rationally the very things that cause most of our physical, emotional and mental pain and suffering never originated with God. The Bible is very plan in stating that God never planned for any human to suffer from disease, decay or death. They are the result of greed, malice and hatred. They are the result of evil/sin.
Sometimes when you sit with people that are undergoing a time of pain and suffering, they often blame God for their problems, for their sickness and suffering.
That is why it is so important to really to be quiet, read and study the Bible. The more you read the Bible the more you come to understand that when we accepted sin into our world, we also accepted the possibilities for all kinds of suffering, disease and death.
God gets a bad rap most of the time.
He never gets enough credit for making a way for us to be redeemed. He never gets enough credit for loving us and infilling us with His Holy Spirit.
He gets blamed for all the disease and suffering in our world. He gets blamed every time there is a pandemic or a natural disaster – in fact, we call them acts of God.
They are not acts of God – they are acts that happened because we humans decided long ago to allow evil into our Garden of Eden. They happen because we gave our keys – our authority over to evil and as a result our world has forever been changed.
What we really want God to do is to allow us to live the way we want to, to eat the things that we eat, to have all the pleasures that are available to us and be able to do all those things without any pain, any disease or any suffering.
We want to disobey all the laws of God and involve ourselves into activities and things that we were never meant to experience and expect God to come and save us and heal us no matter how many times we do bad things over and over again.
We want God to make it possible for us to drink, eat and do things that we know are not good for us and there not be any consequences.
I think what we should be amazed at is that in the midst of a world that choose sin and that choses to manipulate creation and constantly harm the planet and overuse what we know are harmful chemicals that God steps in and heals anything or anyone.
What we should do is realize that just as God went with Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, He also has not left us alone to simply suffer.
The Bible talks about all kinds of healing – physical, emotional, mental, financial and spiritual.
There are stories upon stories of how God brought healing to people like Hannah, Abimelech, David, Jeremiah, Elijah and Hezekiel in the Old Testament. In the New Testament we see God in flesh – Jesus bringing healing and freedom to all kinds of people – people who were blind, lame, had leprosy, suffered from one mental disease to another. We see the Early Church bringing healing to many in the name of Jesus.
But again, we don’t give God enough praise.
Every time we get cut or we fall ill, and we come out of it alive and well = we need to realize Jehovah Ralpha is at work.
When you think about it, we humans and perhaps even more interesting is we humans who have asked God to forgive us and redeem us tend to do some odd praying and thinking.
1. We know that one day we will all physically die – the Bible is very clear on that –
Genesis 3:19
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground--because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return."
Ecclesiastes 3:2
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
Hebrews 9:27
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,
2. We know that we will be resurrected with a New Body – one that will never die and will never suffering from disease or death.
And yet knowing that – we tend to always fuss and complain when these bodies of ours cause us pain and suffering.
I personally think it would be good for us to take a moment and reflect on all the times in our lives that God has brought healing into our lives.
+If you have ever broken a bone or had a new knee, shoulder or hip then you know that it was more than the doctor who brought healing. It was Jehovah Jireh.
+If you have suffered from depression, anxiety or some other mental or emotional illness you know it was more than just some Vitamin D, medication or cognitive therapy that brought you healing. It was Jehovah Jireh.
All of us would like to have our new bodies today. But those new bodies will be ours in a new world – a world without sin, disease and death.
For now, we are here in this world – and we will all have to die. And yes, we will all suffer from older bodies, minds and a thousand other things.
And in the midst of all that we are called to pray to God and for one another. We are called to be a part of God’s healing hands. We are called to help one another the best we can to relieve pain and suffering.
We are called to thank God every day for doctors, nurses and those who do their best to bring comfort to people’s bodies, minds and souls.
At times it gets quite frustrating because we read stories like the one with Hezekiah and his healing, the lame man and his healing, Hannah and her healing and the demonic and his healing and we wonder why everyone can’t be healed.
Tony Campolo shares a story that might help us. It happened when he was asked to pray for a man who was suffering from cancer. Tony prayed boldly for the man’s healing and the next week got a call from the man’s wife.
She said – You prayed for my husband. He had cancer.
Tony at first thought his prayer had been answered because she said he had cancer but then he heard her say – He died. Tony then felt hopeless, defeated and terrible.
But then she said – Don’t feel bad. When you saw him, he was filled with anger. He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God. He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn’t take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew towards God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him. It was an awful thing to be in his presence.
After you prayed for him, a peace came over him and a joy came into him. She shared that his last three days had been the best days they had ever experienced together. They sang songs, they laughed, they read the Bible together and they prayed. It was all wonderful and life transforming.
She told Tony thank you for his prayer. And then she said this – Tony, He wasn’t cured but he was healed.”
This morning as we come to our time to share Communion we know that the cup represents the blood of Jesus. It represents the grace that has been given to us and is continually given to us each and everyday.
The bread represents the body of Jesus – in Isaiah 53 we read these words:
...He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
Invitation to the Table
