Christmas: Our Celebration
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new-born King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild;
God and sinners reconciled.”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With angelic hosts proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
So begins one of the most well-known Christmas carols, a song of jubilant praise for the miracle of the incarnation, when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14), when God “[took] the form of a bondservant, and [came] in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7), when “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim 1:15).
It was a time of joy, a time of hope, and a time of light, light that shone–and still shines–brighter than the star over Bethlehem (Jn 1:9).
What made this light so brilliant, however, is the darkness in which it shone.
Sin: Our Chronic Illness
Isaiah describes Israel,
Alas, sinful nation,
A people laden with iniquity,
A brood of evildoers,
Children who are corrupters!
They have forsaken the LORD,
They have provoked to anger
The Holy One of Israel,
They have turned away backward.Why should you be stricken again?
You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart faints.From the sole of the foot even to the head,
Isaiah 1:4-6
There is no soundness in it,
But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores;
They have not been closed or bound up,
Or soothed with ointment.
With these words, the prophet paints a picture of a nation broken with sin, rotting from the inside, decrepit, and full of illness. The illness of sin that leads, ultimately, to death (Ro. 6:32).
Hosea echoes,
Hear the word of the LORD,
You children of Israel,
For the LORD brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land:“There is no truth or mercy
Hosea 4:1-3
Or knowledge of God in the land.
By swearing and lying,
Killing and stealing and committing adultery,
They break all restraint,
With bloodshed upon bloodshed.
Therefore the land will mourn;
And everyone who dwells there will waste away
With the beasts of the field
And the birds of the air;
Even the fish of the sea will be taken away.”
God’s beautiful creation–from the natural world around us to the carnal hearts within us–has been ruined by the curse of sin. Everywhere we look, we see the sickness of sin bringing pain, weakness, loss, and destruction.
This is the world God came to inhabit.
Christ, by highest heav’n adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail th’ incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus our Immanuel.
Jesus: Our Healer
This message of healing–healing the sickness of sin–is the gospel itself:
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Galatians 4:4-5
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration . . .
Titus 3:3-5
One of the most beautiful prophecies of this healing, this salvation comes from another Old Testament prophet:
But to you who fear My name
Malachi 4:2
The Sun of Righteousness shall arise
With healing in His wings . . .
The Hebrew word for “healing” is the noun marpe, which translates into the terms health, healing, or cure. It comes from the root verb rafa, which means to heal or make healthful, both literally and figuratively.
Those of us who battle chronic illness may ask, Where is this healing?
The better question to ask is, What is this healing?
Matthew Henry wrote in his commentary,
Christ came, as the sun, to bring not only light to a dark world, but health to a diseased world. . . . Christ came into the world to be the great physician, yea, and the great medicine too, both the balm in Gilead and the physician there. When he was upon the earth, he went about as the sun in his circuit, doing this good; he healed all manner of sicknesses and diseases among the people; . . . But his healing bodily diseases was a specimen [part] of his great design in coming into the world to heal the diseases of men’s souls, and to put them into a good state of health, that they may serve and enjoy both God and themselves.
Vol IV, p. 1503
In other words, Jesus’ miraculous healing of physical maladies wasn’t an end by itself; it was a means to the end of confirming His identity as the long-awaited Messiah, the Savior of sinful men, the Healer of our broken hearts.
So if you’re wondering why God hasn’t healed your chronic illness, or if you struggle to sing about the healing in His wings when your physical discomforts continue, remember: Jesus didn’t come for the purpose of healing our bodies. He came to heal our souls.
Interestingly, Tolkien depicts Aragorn also as a healer-king in The Return of the King:
Then Gandalf said: ‘Let us not stay at the door, for the time is urgent. Let us enter! For it is only in the coming of Aragorn that any hope remains for the sick that lie in the House. Thus spake Ioreth, wise-woman of Gondor: The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.’
Ch. VIII, The Houses of Healing
A fictional character, Aragorn points us to the true King who is also our Healer.
Yet what was the cost of this healing? Look at these passages of Scripture:
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
Isaiah 53:5
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
Note: in this verse, the Hebrew word for “healed” is rafa, as discussed above. If you’ve heard the name Jehovah Rapha–the Lord who heals–that’s the same word given here for our salvation.
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross
Philippians 2:8
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:45
“For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
Matthew 26:28
So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.
John 19:30
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures
1 Corinthians 15:3-4
This death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the reason for our celebration of Christmas and the cure for our chronic illness of sin. Can you think of a more glorious, hope-filled, life-giving message?
Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings:
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.
God: Our Renewer
What I love about the gospel message is that it doesn’t stop with our salvation. The healing of our souls, while miraculous and glorious enough, and the reason for Jesus’ first coming, is not the only healing promised to us.
Someday, God promises, He will heal our bodies–and not just our bodies, but this broken world too.
In the New Testament we don’t see the same ideas presented of God as a healer that we do in the Old Testament, but we do see another term in the New Testament’s original Greek that carries a similar idea. This term is the adjective kainos, and it can relate to form or substance. Specifically in regards to form, it carries the ideas of recently made, fresh, unused, and unworn.
Isn’t that a beautiful picture? God who heals is God who renews.
Look at the ways this word “new” is used throughout the New Testament and the healing it promises:
And [Jesus] said to them, “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.
Mark 14:24
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17
And that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:24
Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
2 Peter 3:13
Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”
Revelation 21:5
This last verse is special to me: “Behold, I make all things new” has been my phone lock screen for the past few years, and I don’t plan to change it. I love the regular reminder that, someday, what I feel in my body will be gone and this world will be remade and perfect once more.
God our healer is God our renewer–of our souls first, and then, in His timing, of our bodies and this world. While we receive the “healing in His wings” now, experiencing from the moment of salvation the eternal life He promised us, someday we will also receive and see His complete renewal of all things.
Come, Desire of nations, come!
~Charles Wesley
Fix in us Thy humble home:
Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head;
Adam’s likeness now efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Final Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
As we celebrate this Christmas, let us remember why Jesus came to be born in a manger: not to heal all our physical ills (yet), but to heal our greatest spiritual ill, sin. Let us praise Jehovah Rapha for healing our hearts, restoring our relationship with Him, and renewing us as we were meant to be in His image. And let us look forward to the day when all His healing work will be complete.
The Valley 