HEALTH IN JESUS.
BY HORATIUS BONAR, D.D.
And the whole
multitude sought to touch Him;
For there went
virtue out of Him, and healed them all.
-Luke vi:19.
Jesus is here the center of a
great crowd from all parts of Palestine. They have heard of Him, and they flock
to Him. His words and deeds attract them. He has what they want so they gather
round Him. The scene teaches us such lessons as the following:
I. There is healing in
Jesus. He came from heaven with all the health of heaven in Him; health,
like sunshine, flowing out irrepressibly; health of every king; health without
measure; health inexhaustible. The balm of the mountains of Gilead might wither
down and die out; this heavenly balm could not; it was like the leaves of the
tree of life, never failing, ever growing and ever green. The physicians of
Gilead died, till none were left; this Physician dies not. He is the
everlasting Christ, the Son of God. All health, and skills, and kindness are to
be found in Him; for not only is He perfect man, but very God; nay, and the
fullness of the healing Spirit without measure dwells in Him.
II. There is sickness in
us. We are sick, nigh unto death; sick in body, sick in soul; the whole
head sick, the whole heart faint; our wound incurable by man; our hurt
grievous. It is sickness pervading our whole system; sickness accompanied with pain
and weakness; with sorrow, and sadness, and braveness of spirit. It prostrates
the body and clouds the mind.
We may cover it over, but it
is still there. We may soothe with anodynes and administer sleeping draughts,
but the disease is unremoved. We may deaden or drown the pain in worldliness,
or business, or vanity, or lust, but the mortal malady is still working in
every part. O deadly disease of sin! What a world hast thou made here,-what an
hospital, a lazar-house, a city of the plague! O pains of earth, not temporary
or occasional, but constant and abiding; forerunners of the eternal pain, the
eternal sickness, the eternal agony and woe.
III. Contact with Jesus
heals. The medicine must be taken; the Physician’s hand must touch us; we
must in some ay or another come within the circle where the divine virtue is
flowing out. It is indeed the Holy Spirit that applies the remedy; but He does
so by bringing us within this healing circle, by making us touch Him who is the
divine treasure-house of health. There was no healing for Israel without
looking at the brazen serpent; so there is no healing for us without the look,
the touch that brings us into contact with Jesus. It is not a clasping or
embracing, but a touching; a touching even the hem of His garment; a touching His
shadow, as in the case of Peter. Such is the resistless efficacy, the irrepressible
virtue that is lodged in Him. And as we are healed by touching, so our health
is continued by our continuing to touch. It is to be a constant
touching; a life-time’s contact; nay, an eternal contact. Thus is our new
health begun and prolonged. Does this seem a hard thing? A hard ting to be always
in communication with Jesus; to be always under the shadow of the tree
of life; to be always on the brink of the crystal river of the New Jerusalem?
If some think it hard, they show that all is yet wrong with them; and that it
is sheer necessity and force that is brining them to entertain the thought of
contact with Jesus at all. Should we call it a hard thing to be daily obliged
to breathe the fresh air and bask in the glorious sunshine? Is it a hard thing
to be obligated to eat that we may be fed, or to sleep that we may be
refreshed? Is it a hard thing for the friend to be in company with the friend,
or the parent with the child? Is there not among multitudes who call Jesus,
Saviour, a feeling that they would rather only use Him in times of great
necessity, but at other time have the fellowship of every one in preference to
Him? But the disease that bring us to Him keep us at His side. There is no
health away from Him; neither is there joy. We come for the cure of our pain,
but we find this only a small part of what we obtain from Him. We find all
in Him; and so we hold Him fast, and will not let Him go. It is our very life,
our very joy to remain in contact with Him.
IV. This health and this
contact are free to us. There is no fence around Him to keep us off; no
guard to forbid or warn us away. Any one, every one may come at once to be
healed. It is the sick, not the that he invites. It is the leper, the palsied,
the fevered, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the devil-possessed, that He bids
welcome to. On every side we may approach Him. At any time, and in any way, we
may come. Whatever may be the length or the deadliness of our disease, we may
come.
The Physician is divinely
skillful; the medicine is free; the cure is certain. Health for sick humanity!
Medicine for a diseased world! A Physician for a dying race! Such are the
messages which we bring. Al of them overflowing with God’s great love to
sinners; to sinners simply as such. The depths of the divine compassion are
infinite. So are its heights. God’s pitying love takes the worst sinner that
ever breathed the air of earth. Wide as earth; wide as the bounds of sin; wide
as the evil of human hearts; wide as heaven; wide as His own infinite
heart-such is the pitying love of God.
