A, Pentecost 4 Proper 5 - Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 "Our Doctor is our Bandage"
Key Verse
Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” (Matt 9:12)
Sermon
When I say doctor what image fills your mind? GPs, dentists, physios, chiropractors, specialists, surgeons, naturopaths, other doctors perhaps? Don’t we put our trust, in fact our faith, in these people to make us whole; to restore peace in our lives, bring ease to our dis-ease? Yes! We go to the doctor to receive his or her diagnosis and a remedy so that we might live a better life!
Don’t we put complete faith in their knowledge, accepting the fact that they know every medical aspect of our bodies? We don’t often question them, their methods, or their instruments, nor do we really want to know the ins and outs of being a doctor. But rather we let them do their thing! Occasionally we may question their diagnosis, but for the most part, we place our faith in them.
Picture this. A doctor with a difference. This doctor, walking down a road, comes along and seeks out a child, who seems to be healthy. He diagnoses the child, as having a terminal disease. This doctor is truly amazing, the child is not taken to him but rather he comes. But this is not all! As if this is not enough, he willingly swaps the ease of his body with the unsuspected disease of the child’s.
And later on he comes into the presence of a girl with a sore throat and a bad cough. No matter what the girl tries to do, she can’t get rid of this cold. Before she can do anything, he absorbs the sum total of her virus into himself. The girl goes off down the road free, she bounds along with a spring in her step, no headache, no razorblades in the throat, and no hacking cough.
This doctor continues down the road, passionate about the direction in which he is heading, for over the next ridge is a man who has fallen off his bike and mangled his leg. He writhes around in a massive amount of pain. The doctor comes along, weighed down by eternal disease, weeping eyes and a runny nose, but he stops and says to the bike rider it’s ok, get up and ride off. In an instant pain is gone, his bike is fine, he jumps up, mounts his bike and rides off. The doctor continues off in the other direction, not as fast as before, head hung low, pain on the face, broken only by the constant jolt a rasping cough, and now limping on a half mangled leg.
He comes across a woman, she is lying on the road lifeless! He is glad he was sent along the road that day; his heart is filled with compassion as he comes to her. The doctor falls to his knees beside her and sees that she has been shot. He places his hand over the wound, as if it were a bandage, the woman opens her eyes she hops up and walks off. The doctor opens his hand and sees the bullet that was meant for her flesh, he places his hand on his side and the bullet pierces him as if it were a spear. Some how he manages to stand, he is determined to continue, he struggles along the road until it comes to an end, at the base of a big ugly tree. The doctor can’t walk any further, he turns and faces his back to the tree and falls against it and there he dies.
In Isaiah 53:4-5 the word of God says, ‘Surely he has borne our unhealthiness and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
This doctor is Jesus Christ. This messianic doctor is our remedy. Our Lord Jesus Christ – the one who bandages – is the bandage applied to our wound, soaking up the disease from our bodies, and giving us life. The one who prescribes is the prescription, this healing cream is Christ, our Lord – the lotion, and our Saviour – the antiseptic solution.
In the Gospel reading for today, we heard of three occasions where people’s life journeys were changed forever after being met by Jesus. First, Matthew a tax collector, seen by the Pharisees as a thief, an outcast of Jewish society by his association with gentiles—unable to go into the temple, into the presence of God.
Then second, a woman who suffered from a twelve-year menstrual period, also unclean, unable to go into the temple, because the Law clearly states in Leviticus 15 that, ‘ … All the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness; as in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean.’ Men don’t get off either, in fact any emission of bodily fluid from a man or a woman made them unclean in the eyes of the Law. And third, a little girl lies dead in her bed; contact with this little corpse is a sure guarantee of becoming unclean.
But Jesus enters into their world of uncleanness; this doctor soothes and heals their spiritual illnesses causing both their physical and spiritual aliments to be cured. The ultimate transference between patient and doctor happens in this meeting between unclean and clean. The healing cream is Christ, our Lord is the lotion.
So how does Jesus heal the people in these three different scenes? How does he apply himself to their infirmities and impurities? How does he apply himself to our sicknesses and sin?
It seems that the faith of both the bleeding woman and the father of the dead girl are the key factors in the healings; as if faith were something that was born out of their own decisions to get well. If we go down that road, we turn gospel faith into law. Faith becomes a work of the individual in order that they believe. It’s as though we’re telling our gracious doctor how to fix us when we sit before him in his surgery!
But no! Faith is the property of Christ, faith is never ours but it does live within us. The haemorrhaging woman and the dead girl’s father had faith, but it was not born in them, and although Matthew’s gospel doesn’t record how they came to have faith, verse nine sheds some light on the source of faith, ‘As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And Matthew got up and followed him.’
‘Follow me’, Jesus’ word is all it takes for Matthew to receive faith, stand up, and leave the comfort of his life of illness, uncleanness, and separation from God. It’s the Word that accomplishes; the Word that empowers; the Word that was with God at the beginning doctoring chaos into a healthy creation; and the Word that today stands at God’s right hand, and in the lives of God’s people.
Hear we are today, still suffering with our bodily sicknesses and diseases. We still suffer from the brokenness of relations with others, families in disagreements, neighbours in conflict, creation itself threatens to destroy us. Our whole being—mind, body, and spirit—still suffers from the effects of living in a fallen world. It might appear that this Christ cream hasn’t cured us. Sicknesses make our bodies groan, our bones clatter, and day by day death still gets closer. Sin is forever fighting in us!
However, hasn’t faith brought you here? Haven’t you entered the hallowed walls of the heavenly surgery? Isn’t the doctor, dressed in brilliant white, attending to our wounds, dressing our sores with his brilliant white bandages of forgiveness? Are we not receiving the proclaimed Word right at this moment? Are we not receiving the Word through the waters of our baptism, the body bread and the blood wine of Holy Communion? Are we not receiving it through songs, prayers, and fellowship? Our healing cream is Christ, our Lord is the lotion, and the one who bandages us is our bandage!
Remember that doctor walking down the road, absorbing the sickness and brokenness of those he came across. That tree he collapsed and died on has been lifted up in victory over your illnesses, diseases, your sin.
Healing has begun, restoration, and repair is ongoing. Sin is being remedied. We have been given the promise of full health; one day soon the doctor will heal us and take us into his Father’s eternal garden as eternally healed holy people. Amen
Now may the healing grace of Jesus Christ, the lotion love of God the Father, and the faith giving fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, Amen.
