Prayer of Preparation Is There a Balm in Gilead? Jeremiah 8:18-22 August 31, 2014 Pastor Andy Kinsey Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored? - Jeremiah 8:22 O Lord, may the healing power of your grace remind us again of the lengths you will go to restore us and save us, forgive us and heal us. In Christ s name we pray: Amen! The Message There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. I don t know how many times I have sung that song, and at the conclusion of the service we will sing it again, but I know the song came to life for me when, in seminary, I traveled to Gilead, in what is now Jordan, on a month-long trip through Israel and the Middle East and Greece. With Old Testament Professor Max Miller I learned about the land of Gilead and the balm that can make us whole. Walking the hills I learned that the balm in Gilead was a small bush that produced little pods that contained an aromatic resin. It was regarded as having properties of healing that eased pain and covered the smell of festering wounds. In fact, the resin was highly valued throughout biblical times, even as far back as in Genesis when Joseph is sold into slavery to Egypt (Gen. 37:25).
Since the balm had a pleasant smell unlike, say, castor oil or cough syrup it might actually fit better in the good medicine category of the stuff we wouldn t mind taking for an illness or an injury. However, like a lot of good-tasting or good-smelling medicines, it may not be as effective as we might want it to be: in other words, there are some illnesses where the bitter is more necessary than the sweeter in order to make us better again. For example, who here can forget Mom or Dad or Grandma insisting we take that castor oil, or sucking in that nasty aroma from a medicine that promised to open up our clogged sinuses, all the while saying, This will make you better!? Remember? Or, to quote that old Bon Jovi song from the 1980 s sometimes Mom s love was like bad medicine, where the cure was worse than the disease, but where in the end we actually did get healed and got a bonus for staying well! (Who here would have ever thought you would have heard Bon Jovi mentioned in a sermon? Now you have!) Sometimes the medicine we need is not what we want to take! Jeremiah s Message That s not a popular message, but it may help to explain the tears of Jeremiah, known to many as the weeping prophet! Jeremiah knows deep in his bones that there is no balm, no medicine, in Gilead strong enough to affect the cure of the sins of the nation. He knows that God s judgment is about to come upon the land in the form of exile and captivity, in the form of invading armies from Babylon. At beginning of his ministry Jeremiah hoped and prayed that God would spare the people such destruction, and God did. But latter, after seeing how the people were not going to change, he wept and broke down. What s a prophet to do? Quit? Run the other like Jonah only to return? 2
No! The answer is to keep preaching! That s what! Jeremiah preached and preached, and instructed and warned the people of Judah to turn away from living shamefully (8:12), from deceiving and lying to their neighbors (9:4-5), from oppressing the weak and the poor and refusing to know God (9:6), and from doing their own thing, (8:6), from being traitors, or adulterers, who betrayed God (9:2). However, Jeremiah also realized, only too late, that no balm in Gilead was going to affect the cure: the nation was simply too far gone. More was needed! The cure for the sin-sick soul was going to involve some very bad medicine: it was going to involve judgment on the one hand and great love on the other, repentance and forgiveness together. It was going to involve a heavy dose of reality, a kind of hitting rock bottom; in short, it was going to involve nothing less than encountering God s Word, if there was to be real healing. Familiar Message? That s a familiar message throughout the prophets in the Old Testament, and even throughout Jesus ministry: We human beings have this incredible capacity NOT to listen to what will truly help us and heal us, though God wants to! We have this kind of sin-bent tendency to follow our own agendas, pursuing our own sense of right, rather than being faithful to God. That s a message we hear throughout the Bible, whether with Jeremiah or Jesus: bringing on our own downfall is something we seemed to have mastered! That s not a politically correct message these days, to be sure, especially when using the language of sin, as the language of sin shifts the focus to personal responsibility (and who wants to be responsible?!). But to say that I sin or that we sin is to say that we need to confront certain things about ourselves that we would rather not confront. There is action involved honesty, commitment, truth, forgiveness, judgment, grace! 3
Again, not a popular message in Jeremiah s day or ours: taking medicine that will really help us is not easy. I say this not to wallow in drudgery but to say simply that there are times when facing our problems, both internally and externally, that we may feel helpless! What are we to do? In sharing with you last week, for example, the litany of brokenness in our own world and country we realized how, with Jeremiah, sometimes all we can do is weep when we see how we as human beings can be our own worst enemy. All we can do is cry when we see what is happening in the Middle East, or in Ferguson, Missouri, or in our own families; it is not too difficult to envision where things may go if present behaviors and attitudes continue, to know that the only way things may change is when things get worse. Parents, you know what this feels like! The love you have for your children runs deep, and you want the best for them: You don t want to see them get hurt or suffer. But you also know that you can t make changes for them. That s where Jeremiah is! He sees what is taking place, and he loves his people, but he weeps for them because he can t change what is coming; he can t undo what has been done all the idolatry, all the lying: only God s deep love and righteous judgment stirring and convicting and moving the heart will bring about that kind of transformation. My joy is gone, grief is upon me; my heart is sick (8:18). Who among us has not had these feelings for those we love? God s Healing Invitation But it s not just Jeremiah s feelings: it s also the way God feels and hurts; after all, it is God who has been betrayed, as the people commit their lives to other causes, other gods, other things. What s a prophet to do but weep?! 4
In other words, after the sermon is given and the benediction is offered, what s a preacher to do? Now it s in God s hands. Now it s in your hands! Now it is a work of the Holy Spirit on the heart! The medicine has been offered, but will we take it? Therefore, Jeremiah s answer to the question about whether there is a balm in Gilead is, No, there isn t a balm in Gilead strong enough to bring what we need. There just isn t! On the other hand, the answer to Jeremiah s question is, Yes, there is; yes, there is a balm in Gilead, and only God can provide it! Invitation That s the answer, Yes, there is a balm in Gilead, but the real question now is, Do you want to receive it? What kind of healing do you really need? What kind of touch do you seek, do you pray for? What will draw you closer to God? Because healing, in terms of what God can bring, comes to us through Christ. It comes to us as God reaches out to us in love, promising never to let us go, even when we turn away, even when we break God s heart God s love never ends: God s passionate, eternal, honest love is always there to sustain us and forgive us, come what may. Is there a balm in Gilead? You bet there is! And we invite you to come and receive it! Amen! 5