I am currently reading a book called The Supremacy of God in Preaching by John Piper. In the first part of this book he gives an account of how he had decided at one point during his career as a pastor to spend several Sundays preaching about the holiness and glory of God from the book of Isaiah. At some point during or after this period a father approached him and told him that it was during this time that he and his wife had discovered that their daughter was being sexually abused by a relative. He proceeded to tell Piper that it was his preaching on the holiness, majesty, and purity of God that kept him going through this difficult time.
When we see people around us full of pain, hurt, and fear it is so easy to get overly caught up in sympathy and forget the fact that God is still on the throne and He is pure, He is majestic, and He is holy. The beautiful thing about this is that He, through the death of His Son has chosen to impart His grace to us, thus giving us an opportunity to get a glimpse of His glory. The only hope for true healing in a person’s life is to partake in the grace that God so freely bestows upon us. The best way to help someone else heal is to introduce them to this grace by allowing God’s love to flow through us to them. Remember the story of Mary and Martha in the New Testament. Jesus had come to visit and Martha was busily preparing the meal while Mary was at Jesus’ feet basking in His presence. Martha was annoyed because Mary was not helping her, but Jesus rebuked her and, in essence, reminded her that some things are more important than preparing meals and having everything perfectly in order. Sometimes we must simply sit at Jesus feet and drink in the words of life. His words heal, they strengthen, they restore, and they redeem.
One aspect of this story that we sometimes overlook, however, is the fact that Mary was sitting in the very presence of God in human flesh. He had been there when the Creation was spoken into existence, He was there when the Deluge covered the earth, He was there when the Red Sea parted. He walked in the fire with the 3 Hebrew children, He caused the sun to stand still when Joshua needed some extra time, He dropped fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, He leveled the walls of Jericho. He used a fearful man named Gideon and 300 men to strike terror in the hearts of thousands of Midianites in a great military triumph which should have left no doubt in anyone’s mind that He had been the One Who had won the victory. He fed the starving widow and her son with an unexplainable supply of oil and flour. His presence caused Isaiah the prophet to cry out “Woe is me for I am man of unclean lips”. He is just, He is holy, He is majestic, He is powerful beyond imagination, He is pure, He is good, and Mary was sitting at His feet captivated by His magnificent presence. This, my friend, is where healing begins.
We should never cease to be enthralled by the astonishing reality of the incarnation. The amazing ramifications of God Himself coming down to us are incredible. Other religions are just a plethora of attempts by man to reach God or a god, when in reality He reached out to us.
So maybe we need to stop striving, stop working, stop trying to solve our problems of pain by doing all the things we are told to do and just sit and bask in the presence of our majestic God. Remember, even though He is all these things that I have mentioned in this meager article and much much more, He also loves you and me intensely – and this is simply astonishing!
