By Prof. Joy Philip Kakkanattu, CMI –
The Bible can be understood as the written document of the memory of the people of God about their relationship with God, who was revealed to them as creator and saviour.
The Old Testament (OT) is the written memory of the people of Israel about their relationship with Yahweh. As we all know, what remains in our memory are the events, persons and experiences which have influenced us positively or negatively, or which made an impact on our lives.
Also Read:
Part II: New Testament Understanding on Healing
Part III: Healing and Forgiveness
The New Testament (NT) is the recollected memory regarding the person and mission of Jesus of Nazareth of the early Christian communities, resulting from the cumulative prayerful reflection on the proclamation of the eye-witnesses to Jesus Christ after Pentecost.
God as Healer
One important aspect of this documented memory is the understanding of God as saviour and healer, both of an individual and of humanity in general, and of the chosen ones in particular. The biblical revelation of God witnesses that He is interested in the care of the sick and the afflicted. Illness, suffering and healing are important themes running across the Bible, both the OT and NT. In other words, taking care of the sick, the afflicted and the downtrodden forms an important aspect of the biblical programme of salvation history documented in the Bible.
Exodus 15:26 says: ani Yahweh ropheyeka (I am Yahweh, your healer.) With reference to Yahweh, the Hebrew verb rapah often implies the amelioration or alienation from misfortune or sins of individuals and of the people as a whole. (e.g., Ex 15:26; Isa 30:26; Jer 30:17; Hos 7:1; 14:5; Ps 147:3; Job 5:18). If illness is conceived as leading to death, Yahweh’s healing is understood as life-bringing. It refers to the reversal of any negative situation, like making water drinkable, making a barren womb fertile, etc. In the historical books, there are instances, like Elijah healing the child of the widow of Zarephath, where healings “are gracious acts of God, revealing his power to make whole and demonstrating his willingness to intervene in human affairs in answer to prophetic supplications of faith.”
Psalms
In the psalms, Yahweh is addressed as one’s close aid and trusted beloved with whom the petitioner has the freedom to share all his/her infirmities, both physical and spiritual. Yahweh is the sure healer of the suffering person. In all the experiences of disorientation caused by the various infirmities of life, the psalmist cried to the Lord to save him/her from these situations.
The understanding of God as having a special inclination to the cry of the poor and the afflicted encourages the psalmist to compel God to listen to his/her cry, too, as we recite in Ps 130:1-2, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Yahweh, Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive (incline your ears) to the voice of my supplications!” The depths is a common theme in lament psalms, referring to experiences of sin, sickness, death and decay. While the praying person is confronted with realties which take him/her to the realm of infirmities, he/she tries to take refuge in the cry to Yahweh from the existential predicament of the realm of death. Thus, it becomes a prayer “to the countervailing power that can rescue from this sphere of the power of death and chaos.”
Every illness creates disorder in a person. When one is subdued by various forces of Sheol and is far away from Yahweh, who is enthroned in Zion, the ultimate hope of salvation is a genuine cry to the God of the living. In the psalms, healing is always seen as the gift of God’s salvific intervention in life. For the psalmist, healthy existence means the experience of shalom – that is, well-being resulting from harmony of relationships with self, God, neighbours and nature. When any one of these components is affected, one becomes unhealthy, and hence, “healing and salvation are linked insofar as they both involve restoration to dynamic wholeness in body, mind, spirit, society and the world, and derive from being in proper relation to God.”
Prophets
The prophets broadened the notion of Divine restoration and healing to national and covenantal issues and focus for the most part on corporate restoration, often in the context of corporate repentance. Hosea, summarizes the whole history of Israel from Egypt to Canaan as a healing: Yahweh the parent complaints that Israel, the child failed to understand that Yahweh healed them (11:3). What is the implication? It may be possible that Hosea is here pointing to Yahweh’s bringing Israel out from Egypt and the subsequent dealing with them as a healing process (cf. Exod 15:26).
The metaphor of Yahweh as healer “reflects the notion that a healer is also the saviour of the one healed.” At the same time, he may be alluding to the actual situation of the contemporary Israelite society as a situation of malaise, political and socio-religious that is in need of healing. For Hosea, only Yahweh can heal the sickness of Israel (cf. Hos 7:13). In their present situation of sickness, they fail to look to Yahweh, their healer, because they have not realized the historical fact that Yahweh brought them from the situation of malady to that of well-being. Add to the fact that they do not perceive the true healer, they even go to other human and divine agents expecting cure (Hos 5:13; Hos 11:2). The prophets thus highlighted the social as well as the corporate dimension of sickness and healing.
To be continued…
Prof. Dr. Joy Philip Kakkanattu, CMI is a Catholic religious priest belonging to the Congregation of the Carmelite of May Immaculate (CMI). He is a resident faculty at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram (DVK) Bengaluru for the last 13 years. He is currently the president of Catholic Biblical Association of India (CBAI). He holds a bachelor degree in Chemistry from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Licentiate in sacred Scripture from Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome and Doctorate in Theology with specialisation in Biblical Theology from Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome. He is a visiting faculty to many theological institutes and formation houses. Besides scholarly articles, he writes and composes Christian devotional songs. He can be reached at: [email protected].