He healeth those that are broken in
heart
and giveth medicine to heal their sickness
(Ps 147:3, Prayer Book Version).
...if the Lord does have a universal, one-size-fits-all panacea for broken
hearts, it is a fresh vision of Himself, some aspect of His character which we
have not yet internalized but which exactly suits that moment’s need. His very name is “I AM THAT I AM,” and that
name is His promise that he Himself is all we need. It hardly seems coincidence that both Job and
Naomi in their deepest pain call him Shaddai, the All-Sufficient God, as
adequate for our soul’s need as a mother’s breast (shad, in Hebrew) is
for her infant.
While God rarely
grants a personal, visible appearance to us (even in Bible times the
exception rather than the rule), He has given us the substance of such a vision
in the Bible, particularly in the portrait of Christ found there. Hebrews tells us Jesus was made like us, His
brothers, in every way except sin.
Because He Himself knows our suffering by experience, He is just
the tenaciously loyal and compassionate friend a broken heart needs (Heb
2:17-18).
Am I hurting physically? He suffered death by crucifixion. Am I ashamed and scorned? Anyone who died on a cross was reckoned
cursed by God; even the thief dying on His left mocked Him. Am I grieving? Jesus grieved for the pain of His loved ones,
weeping alone in Gethsemane, tenderly entrusting His mother to His beloved
disciple as He died. Am I mourning for
loved ones who do not know the Lord and don’t even seem to care? He wept over unbelieving Jerusalem, and He
loves our loved ones far more than we do.
His grief is with us for them. Am
I lonely, persecuted, desolated? He was
continually misunderstood even by His family and closest friends. In the end, He was delivered to His enemies
by one of those friends—with a kiss of betrayal, for the price of a common
slave. Even His own Father forsook Him
in that hour of darkness when He bore our sin.
No other loneliness can compare with that. Whatever pain I’m feeling, however
excruciating it may be, He knows.
When our deepest
need is just that, simply someone who knows, who understands our pain from
having been there himself, someone who will stay with us in the pain and suffer
with us patiently, we need look no further than Jesus. He healeth those that are broken in heart
and giveth medicine – is Himself the medicine – to heal their sickness. Thanks be to God. Amen.
