How God Heals (1): Common Grace

Here is last week's sermon, 1 week late and w/o video. Apologies! 

Two Sundays from this morning, we will celebrate St. Luke’s Day. Why remember Luke? There are at least three reasons. 

Luke is remembered in the Church as a writer, an historian even. Tradition remembers Luke as the author of the third Gospel and its sequel, the book of Acts. If this memory is sound, and I have seen no strong reason to discount it, then Luke was a close companion of Paul and probably travelled with him. If you’re a Bible-nerd like I am, you can check out what scholars call the “we passages” in the book of Acts after church today. Luke is directly caught up in at least some of the story that he tells us.  

Not only that, but Luke is remembered also as an early Gentile convert to the faith. Though there’s no story of his conversion preserved for us, I sometimes wonder if he is not very much like the fellow named Theophilus, the man for whom he writes both his Gospel and Acts. Perhaps Luke was someone on the margins of faith, a God-fearing Gentile like Cornelius in Acts 12, who came to faith only after careful investigation of both written and living sources. 

Luke, perhaps most often, is remembered as a doctor or healer. That’s how he is mentioned in Collosians 4:14: “Luke, the beloved physician,” he is called. And it’s this memory—Luke as a healer or doctor—that most influences how we remember Luke. Churches often, for example, take this opportunity to pray especially for the doctors, nurses, and other health professionals in their communities, to thank God for their skills as they are used on us. Churches also set aside St. Luke’s Day to do something with special attention that they do all the time: pray for the sick. And that’s what we’re going to do this year.  

So, on October 22, we’re going to pray, to thank God for the ways in which he heals us, and to ask God to heal people, not just in a general sense, but specifically, by doing as the Scripture commands—through the laying on of hands and anointing with oil. 

But we’re not there yet. This Sunday and next, we’re going to reflect on how God heals us—all of us. All meaning both everyone, and every part. It is my conviction that God heals everyone, and that he heals whole people, bodies and souls.  

I want to unpack that conviction with you today and next week and I want to begin by looking again at our Scripture lessons—both Genesis 1 and Psalm 139. 

Our Scripture lessons today invite us to think first of all about the orderliness of creation. Think about the structure of the story of creation. The earth, we’re told, is formless and empty; it’s a mess of chaotic waters. Then God said. . . The creative word is spoken. And the first thing that happens is that the formless is formed. So on day 1, the earth is formed into Day and Night. On day 2, the forming continues, now Sky and Sea. And on day 3, seas and dry land.  

The formless is formed, but it’s still empty. So God’s creative Word speaks into existence those beings which “fit” in those places. Day 4—the Sun is put in the Day space; the moon and stars are given to the Night space. Day five—birds fill the sky; fish, the sea. Day six—vegetation, animals and human beings are given to the Land.  

There is a space for everything and everything has its space. The description is one of orderliness, fittedness. The fine-tuned structure of all that God had made.  

Now there’s much more going on in this passage, but it takes us away from the simple point I wish to make: human beings are made—however we understand the word made—for this world. We are made to live in it, to know it, not merely to survive but to thrive. And this is not the result of chance, but is the working out of the providential care of God.  

That is echoed by the Psalmist, who speaks of himself as being “marvelously made,” of God being intricately involved in the construction of his body while in the womb, of his limbs being fashioned day by day when as yet there was none of them. The Psalmist speaks in this way to highlight just how well known he is to God. He takes great comfort in the fact that while God may be beyond his knowing, that same God knows him from the molecules up. “How deep I find your thoughts, O God!” he writes in verse 16. 

Now Christians have traditionally believed that the God who created and ordered did not then leave creation to run on its own, but continues to uphold his creation moment by moment even to the subatomic levels, and that he does so even in a creation that is fallen, that contains sinful creatures, that is marked by decay, disease, and death. Theologians—the Bible nerds I spoke of before—call this loving persistence of God with us “common grace.” The favour of God that is extended to everybody. 

I expect by now that some of you are wondering: “What does this have to do with healing?” 

Well, here’s what. 

In the vast vast majority of cases, God heals through his common grace. God heals through the favour that he extends to all people. We see God’s common grace at work in two ways: one, God heals through the still orderly working of his fallen creation; and two, God heals through the skills of human beings, skills acquired through the centuries-long practice of medicine.  

When I say God heals through the still orderly working of fallen creation, I mean just this: our bodies are really good at healing themselves. Andrew Wilson in a recent article in Christianity today sums this way God heals very well. “A virus attacks my body, and my white blood cells move into action, hunting down the perpetrator to kill it. Every second, tiny bits of mineral and organic material are sent to the parts of my body that need them, performing ongoing repairs, hour after hour, year after year. My body heals itself all the time. It’s the result of the grace of God, who created me, searches me, knows me, and loves me.” 

We take that sort of healing for granted all the time, don’t we? Well, maybe you don’t, but I do. I don’t ever recall thanking God for my body’s ability to get over a cold or a flu or for the ways in which simple cuts and bruises heal on their own. God governs creation in just this way, though, because God loves us. In two weeks, we will give space to thank God for the many ordinary and easily overlooked ways in which he heals us.  

God heals through his ongoing care for fallen creation. That’s one expression of common grace.  

It’s not the only one. Remember, the other expression of common grace is that God heals through the healing skills of other human beings. Here’s Wilson again: “At age 11, I cycle into the middle of a busy street. My tibia and fibula are smashed between my bike and a VW Beetle, and a windshield wiper cuts four inches into my side, between my liver and my spleen. An ambulance arrives within minutes, and paramedics put a splint on my leg. At the hospital, my leg is reset. A surgeon removes fragments of windshield glass from my torso, and repairs the gash. After 16 weeks, I’m running around again like normal. The ambulance, the paramedics, the skill of the surgeon, the discoveries that make operating rooms and anesthesia possible—all are gracious gifts of a loving God, whose mercy enables healings to occur all over the world that most other generations would have called miraculous.” 

I have come, over the last year, to appreciate even more not only the skills of doctors, nurses and other health professionals in general. But also specifically—Dr Fred, Dr Azzouzi, Dr Courchesne, the nursing staff at PCH. And you all know why. Those people have worked very hard to cultivate the skills that came into play very specifically in Dad’s situation in order to give him not only a longer life, but a better life than he would have had without them.  

So, I want to thank God for them. I do so in my private prayers almost every day.  And in two weeks, we’ll do just that publicly. As we should. 

But if I stop there in my thanksgivings, I don’t think I’ve gone quite far enough. For even if these people are the immediate cause of Dad’s continuing to be with us, God is the first cause. For they do not work on their own as much as it is God who works through, alongside them, to bring about healing. What we’re saying here is not so much that God provides healers (though that is true), but that God heals through healers and so we thank God both for the healers and the healing they provide.  

So, as we prepare for our healing service in two weeks, let’s remember to thank God for common grace. For the ordinary ways in which God heals everyday. Getting over the first cold of the school year? Thank God and take good care of that wonderful body that heals itself. Managing your diabetes with medication? Thank God for the medical team that diagnosed and treats you. And then, thank God for healing you in these most ordinary of ways. 

Now, why does all this matter? 

It matters because it helps us get to the core of some sloppy Christian thinking about healing, namely, that when we say God heals, we mean only the miraculous. In fact, miraculous healing—more on that next week—is just a small sliver of the divine activity in this area. Far more often, God heals in ways we underappreciate, overlook, or of which we remain unaware. So here are some take aways. 

1.Remember that God’s loving gracious care extends to all creation. 

We sometimes think of creation as something irredeemably fallen, lost and unrecoverable. We tend to think of it as something that we will leave behind, or worse, that God will destroy at the end of time. But that’s not the witness of the Scriptures. The Scriptures are clear that this world is fallen, that decay, death, and disease are some of the ways in which we experience this fallenness, this alienation from God. But, God persists. God provides in ordinary ways for our healing. God provides in extraordinary ways too—and we’ll talk about those next week. But for now we need to say that those extraordinary ways—the miraculous sometimes experienced in this life and the hope of the resurrection and renewal of creation at the end is not the destruction of something bad, but the healing and restoration of something good. And it is good because God created it and continually upholds it for no reason other than God is love. When we experience everyday ordinary healing, let’s thank God for the loving care that upholds creation moment to moment, and providing healing in easily overlooked, unannounced ways. 

2.Acknowledge that all healing comes ultimately from God. 

Perhaps you’ve heard the old joke about Bill, who died in a flood. When he came to the pearly gates, he met St. Peter and announced that he was furious with God. “Why?” asked Peter. “Because,” said Bill, “I prayed for God to rescue me and he didn’t. I even witnessed about it! When the police officer came before the storm and told me to evacuate, I told her God’s going to rescue me. When the soldier came on the boat to my roof and told me to climb in, I told him, God’s going to rescue me. When the helicopter hovered over my head and lowered a rope, I shouted up to the pilot, God’s going to rescue me!” St. Peter smiled sadly and shook his head. “How many more rescues should God have sent?” he asked. 

We treat healing in the same way. Where we separate the miraculous from the everyday, and announce that God is responsible for the one and doctors for the other, the Christian Scriptures, wisely, say God is responsible for it all. Worse, sometimes, we set the miraculous against the everyday and say, God’s going to heal me so I’m not taking my medication. How often are we like poor Bill? How often do we actually refuse God’s healing grace by looking for a miracle when God sends us everyday, ordinary healing? 

3.Thank God and your doctor when you experience “ordinary” healing. 

If God is the source of all healing, then God is to be thanked when we experience it. At the same time, your doctor spent a good deal of time and money acquiring skills in medicine and also put those skills to work on you. So, thank your doctor, too. By thanking God, you’re not diminishing your doctor. By thanking your doctor, you’re not robbing God of praise. It’s not an either/or. So thank God and your doctor and thank God for your doctor. 

As our culture has coarsened so much over the decades, I’ve come to notice a strange coorelation. The more we are anxious about the future, the more we fear for our safety and that of those we love, the more we demand from those around us and the less we are grateful for and generous with what we do have. Perhaps one way we as a community of faith can re-learn and better practice the skill—and it is a skill—of gratitude is to be more thankful for the ordinary ways in which God extends his loving care to all. 

4.Recognize that the healing of bodies and the healing of souls are part of the same divine work. 

Finally, Luke, the physician beloved by St. Paul is Luke the careful historian who gives an orderly account of the life of Jesus and then the Acts of our Lord’s first followers. And when we commemorate St. Luke, we recognize that both God’s healing of our bodies and God’s healing of our souls are part of the same turn toward creation that takes place fully in Jesus, a turn that awaits is full disclosure at our Lord’s return when, as Andrew Wilson puts it, the only tears will be tears of joy.