The Lord knows what profound healing we need. We need healing in our physical bodies, deep within every recess of our soul, in our families and relationships. We need healing in this world, one that's so void of justice and righteousness. Isaiah's message for us today is that God is Awesome in Healing!
One reason we know God is Awesome in Healing is because He is incomparably Great! God asks, “Who is a God like me?” And the answer is that God is your Maker. He stretched out the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth, and stirs up the waves of the sea. He is the Lord of Armies, the King over kings, Lord over lords. He has established his throne forever. He has filled the earth with his glory. He has demonstrated his justice and righteousness. He is the Potter, and we are the clay! He is the one who breathed life into our nostrils and gave us our spirit. He is mighty in power. His name is Holy. He is great lawgiver and judge. His arm is not too weak to save. His Word is trustworthy and true. It never returns empty, but waters, nurtures, bears fruit, fulfills the purpose for which it is sent. In every way, God is great enough to heal! And what other God is so great?
Another reason we know God is Awesome in Healing is because He is incomparably Good! Again, God asks, “Who is a God like me?” And the answer is that God is perfect in faithfulness. He's our Father. We're his children. He hasn't turned his back on us, or abandoned us. He teaches us, instructs, counsels, delights in us when we obey him. Because we are his children, he disciplines us, forgives us, pardons, washes, purifies, removes our shame and disgrace, redeems, revives, strengthens, restores, comforts, shepherds, protects, helps, feeds, waters. Though your sins are like crimson red I will make them as white as snow! In Isaiah God asks, “What more could I have done for you?”
Isaiah 12:5-6, “5 Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things. Let this be known throughout the earth. 6 Cry out and sing, citizen of Zion, for the Holy One of Israel is among you in his greatness.” Isaiah 40:28-31, “28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding. 29 He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless. 30 Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, 31 but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.”
God is Awesome to Heal not just because he is Incomparably Great and Incomparably “Capable." But also, because he is Incomparably Good and faithful. We have his Word, his promises, his track record.
Another reason we can know God is Awesome in Healing is because He is Perfectly Willing to Heal! Throughout most of my adult life, from my early twenties, I struggled with chronic, debilitating pain. It first occurred in my toe and quickly went away. Then my other toe, then my ankles, then eventually also my knees. But really, every joint in my body ached. It didn't just affect me physically, but spiritually and psychologically. I spent much of the prime of my life on crutches, wearing special foam shoes, whimpering in pain, popping Ibuprofen and Lara's experimental concoctions of supplements by the handful (bless her heart).
To be honest, I just accepted my condition as a fact of life, even as God's will. But all my efforts to manage my condition came to a screeching halt, when gout entered and enflamed my knees. For a few months I found myself screaming, crying, praying, questioning God’s wisdom. I'm not exaggerating; it was a very dark moment in life. My doctor wasn't helpful in any way. A nurse in our church listened to my plight, grabbed my shoulders, looked me right in the eye, and said, “You don't need to live like this… Go to this clinic, at this address, and get this resolved.” The next day I hobbled into that clinic on crutches, and a few hours later, I walked back out to my jeep carrying my crutches under my arm. And when I got home, I hung those crutches in the garage, and there they've sat ever since.
Just as it’s true in life, it’s true spiritually. We sometimes imagine there to be some deficiency in God. Is God great enough? Is God good enough? He may be great, we say to ourselves, and even good, but perhaps he just isn't willing. By the time we get to the end of Isaiah, God is practically begging us to come, be healed!
Another reason we can know God is Awesome in Healing is because He invites us into Healing today. We leave no stone unturned in our quest for healing. God says, Isaiah 51:1, “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” Isaiah 51:12, “I—I am the Lord who comforts you…” Isaiah 51:13, “But you have forgotten the Lord, your Maker…”
We wouldn't return to God, but behold, he is sending his servant to us! Isaiah 53:1-3. Here we have this vivid description of God's servant (the Christ) being sent into the world. “Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; he was despised, and we didn’t value him.”
If these verses are indeed describing God's Son Jesus (and we have every reason to believe they do) consider all the ways you might find God relatable! Would you consider yourself a person of impressive form? How about majestic? Would you consider yourself the prettiest, or most handsome person in the room? Does everyone gravitate to you by nature? Jesus doesn't relate to the top, but instead the bottom! How many of you have felt despised, rejected? Jesus knew suffering, he knew what sickness was. He knew what it was like to have people pull back from him because they didn't know how to think, feel, care about him. He knows what it’s like for the world to devalue you, and pass you by.
I’ve got a brain bender for you. Isaiah says the Messiah would “know sickness.” I don't have any reason to think that only means metaphorically. Did Jesus ever have a runny nose? How about a cold or the flu? There is the Christian doctrine that sin leads to death. If Jesus bore sin's ultimate consequence, death, why is it inconceivable that Jesus bore the precursors of death like sickness? Jesus didn't have to sin personally to get sick, he only needed to be with sick people. Jesus didn't have to sin, to die. He could be sinless and sick, sinless and die…
What do we tell ourselves when we get sick? I must have done something wrong, that's why. (That's what Job’s friends told him as well) Or say when we say when someone else is sick? We tell ourselves we’re better, we speculate that maybe they sinned, or didn't have faith, or this or that. Hebrews 4:15-16 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. 16 Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.” God gives us sympathy in spades. Are you weak? Are you tempted? Are you sick? Are you dying? Are you alone, despised, neglected, feeling abandoned? Is pain shooting through your body?
But God is far more than just a sympathizer, he is our Savior! Isaiah 53:4-6, “Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains; but we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. {This is because our theology isn't big enough to conceptualize a suffering God!} 5 But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him. . . {again, at no point can we say God's doesn't get relate, and yet here is the great news!}… “and we are healed by his wounds. 6 We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all.”
How do you take that verse, “we are healed by his wounds…” I know God is going to bring ultimate resurrection healing to my body, he will exchange this weak, corrupted, life-ravaged mortal body and give me an immortal body. I know he will forgive my sin, he will wash my crimson stains and make them as white as snow. He will create a New Heaven and a New Earth. Every knee will bow and tongue will confess him as Lord. God can and will bring ultimate healing, but what about my runny nose? What about my cold? What about this gout, or arthritis, or cancer? Should we not bother God about our thorns? And what about these wounds we carry?
Our Pentecostal brethren are right to understand Isaiah 53:5 as including our present afflictions, not only some future perfected condition. Is there only hope in the future or also hope in the present? Isaiah 55:1, ““Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the water; and you without silver, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without silver and without cost!” No Jesus wasn't running for the Mayor of New York! But what Jesus was saying is this, … “Look to the rock from which you were cut, and to the quarry from which you were dug.”
Isaiah 55:3, “Pay attention and come to me; listen, so that you will live. I will make a permanent covenant with you on the basis of the faithful kindnesses of David.” Isaiah 55:6-7, “6 Seek the Lord while he may be found; call to him while he is near. 7 Let the wicked one abandon his way and the sinful one his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, so he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will freely forgive.”
In Isaiah 58:5-8 God invites us to join him in his healing work, to be a people of prayer, fasting, and true righteousness… “5 Will the fast I choose be like this: A day for a person to deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? 6 Isn’t this the fast I choose: To break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your house, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to ignore your own flesh and blood? 8 Then your light will appear like the dawn, and your recovery will come quickly. Your righteousness will go before you, and the Lord’s glory will be your rear guard” As God's people we must not be any less empathetic, or active or obedient, than God's One and Only Son, Jesus. His ministry of healing is our ministry of healing. Jesus doesn't just sympathize and pray alone—but all of us together pray for one another. This is Christ's vision of Church! A redeemed, healed, and healing people.