Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 231, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1915 — CHRIST THE HEALER [ARTICLE]

CHRIST THE HEALER

“The Good PhysiorarT Who Heals the Body as Well as the SouL Christ is the healer ,of the body as well as of the soul. No one la surprised that a physician visits the sick rather than the healthy, and visits most frequently the worst cases. Nor does anyone dream of making it & reproach that he does not shrink,from visiting those with maladies of a loathsome and dangerous nature. On the contrary he would have little respect for a doctor who refused to attend those in greatest need. Now, Jesus Christ is the Good Physician as well as the Good Shepherd, and his public ministry proves that he recognized two great enemies of mankind. He battled with two conditions which he found everywhere present, namely the ailments of the soul, and the ailments of the body, sin and disease. Jesus came to save the whole man, body and soul. Salvation means restored health. Man’s life is a unity with two essential sides; a compound of matter and 'spirit, of clay and divinity, a perishable body and an immortal soul.

We love to linger o rer the external ministry of healing which filled the land with the name of Jesus. There were other healers in Palestine. There was Luke, the beloved physician, and others no doubt who were loved for the service they could render to the suffering, btit of exact science of healing there was none. It is an expressive phrase which we find in the story of the woman who came and touched Christ’s garment and was healed. She had “suffered many things of many physicians and spent all that she had. and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.” There was a Jewish proverb which said, “Even the best of doctors deserves Gehenna,” and those of us who know anything of native medicine among primitive tribes can understand that saying. Into all this chaos and crudity and superstition and quackery came Jesus with a divine power flowing from him. Surely theTe never was a more beautiful story than that of the healing ministry of Jesus. Doing Christ’s Work; This ministry was a revelation and a prophecy. A well known theologian says that Jesus healed only in order to attract the crowd for his instruction. That is a very shallow interpretation. To me it is a revelation of Christ’s desire to bring salvation to'the body as well as to the soul, to give us a Gospel that would heal the external conditions of human life. It is the divine prophecy of medical missions which have brought hope and help to so many benighted races, for that is not only doing Christ’s work, but doing if in his own way. The healing ministry of Jesus should also be a rebuke to those who claim -that physical pain does not exist. Did Jesus spend a large portion of those three precious years of his ministry in fighting against something that did not have any reality? The healing ministry of Jesus is furthermore a prophecy of the skill and knowledge and wisdom given unto the physician and the surgeon in these latter days. When the disciples marveled at his works Jesus said, “Greater works than these shall ye do.” It has qopie to pass. In the person of the Christian physician Jesus still walks the earth with his healing touch. And every doctor ought to be a, Christian, for Jesus Christ has sanctified that profession, and upon no calling, with the possible exception of the ministry of the word, has he bestowed so great an honor. Worth of the Physician. We laymen to the medical profession do not always recognize the worth of the work of the physician, even as we do not always recognizq the value of the Christian ministry. If the church and its ministry are back of the spiritual and moral progress of the world, the medical profession stands back of its material progress. How is that? What of our inventors, engineers, and captains o# industry? They have done their share of the work, but the man of medicine has made our cities habitable, he has lengthened human life from 18 years in the sixteenth century to almost 60 years. He has driven plagues from the face of the earth and overcome many dread diseases. He has made great undertakings possible. Before the Panama canal could be built the locality had to be made habitable, and men gave their lives in order that others might live and accomplish the great work. The most beautiful benediction of the healing ministry has fallen upon the poor. In the olden days only the dogs of the street soothed their soreß. Now there are dispensaries and infirmaries by the hundreds which minister to the poor without price. In those days ■ Jesus of Nazareth took note of the leper by the wayside and the blind beggar by the gate. Now, when I see the doctor's conveyance standing before the poorest house in the poorest quarter of the city, I think how the Master has given unto these men of his wisdom and skill, and pdt it into their hearts to minister to the least of these his brethren.