St Mildred’s Church,
13th May 2007
He sent his word and healed them
Ps 107:22
The verse from the Psalm has a fascinating connection with an incident in the history of my native
Scotland that I would like to tell you about. In the 1540s just before the Scottish Reformation the city of Dundee was hit by a fearful epidemic of bubonic plague that was so severe that all the structures that would have offered order and care collapsed completely; the dying were untended and dead bodies littered the streets and the disease advanced unhindered and seemingly unstoppable. The dread news spread throughout the country and people in fear stayed as far away as they could. But not so the Reforming preacher George Wishart, who was soon to be burned at the stake as a heretic. When he heard what was happening in
Dundee he dropped what he was doing and went straight to the city. And when he got there he did the last thing that you would have expected, he preached a sermon. John Knox describes it all like this, “He delayed no time but even upon the morrow gave signification that he would preach. The most part of the people were sick or were in the company of those that were sick and for this reason he chose the head of the
East
Port of the town for his preaching place. Those who were whole sat or stood within the Port, the sick and the suspected without. The text of his first sermon was taken from the 107th Psalm, He sent his word and healed them.” By this sermon Master George so raised up the hearts of all that heard him that they regarded not death but judged those more happy that should depart than such as should remain behind…. Master George did not hesitate to visit them that lay in the very extremity of sickness. Them he comforted as well as he might in such a multitude. He also caused that all things necessary for those who could use meat or drink should be ministered and in that respect the town was wondrously benefited; for the poor were no more neglected than were the rich. In the space of a few days the plague was so ceased that there were almost none sick and Master George took his leave of the people of
Dundee.” So one open-air sermon in a tragic situation changed the whole situation for the stricken city. When the gospel is presented to people at the end of their tether who are open to God because there is no help for them from any human source. The word of God when people are open to receive it does not just inform or instruct, it becomes active in the people and the situations to which it is addressed, it has in itself a dynamic to enter actively into all that confronts it so as to transform and heal it. When we are content with ourselves and strong in our self-confidence, we don’t properly listen to that word, so that it is frustrated and obstructed and cannot fulfil God’s intention In speaking it, but when we are flat on our backs in our need and our helplessness, then at last we begin to look upwards, we become open and receptive to God’s promises and God’s action and he gets to work to move us towards wholeness. He sends his word and heals us. Did you notice the three effects of Wishart’s preaching in
Dundee that John Knox most notes. First, it took away the fear of death that was dominating and paralysing the city. It reminded people that to die is not the worst thing that can happen to Christian people, because in Christ death is the door to life and therefore they judged those more happy that should depart than those that should remain. The word heals our fear of death. Second, the word motivates our concern; they had given up till Wishart came and gave them a new impulse to nurse, to feed, to comfort and to care. Without that motivation to care that the Gospel gives to societies that believe in it, there would be no NHS, no free prescriptions for pensioners; it is not for nothing that the chief nurse in our hospital wards is called Sister and wears a headdress that reminds us of a nun. Because that is where all the caring came from. He sent his word and healed them. And thirdly and most mysteriously the word stopped the plague and healed the city. We hear a lot today about psychosomatic medicine, how the state of a person’s mind can for good or ill influence the state of a person’s body. But what if by hearing the word a person’s state of mind is changed from fear to faith, from despair to hope, from surrender to resistance, what if the Word of God in the power of the Spirit God provides a new vitality to the whole centre of our being so that the healthiness that it imparts repels the bugs, dissolves the tumour, repairs the wound, reduces the blood pressure, eases the stiffness. I knew a consultant in a
London hospital who on retirement trained and was ordained to the NSM ministry and I asked him what, wearing both his hats as doctor and priest, he made of the ministry of healing in our churches. I have always treasured his reply, “I have learnt”, he said, “that when the word of God in the power of the Spirit of God is allowed to penetrate deeply into a person’s life, there is no limit to the response that the body can make to it.” It is the promise of that possibility that brings us together to this healing service tonight. It was not by some exotic magic that Jesus healed people; it was by the power of his word. The laying on of hands and the anointing with oil are simply reminders of how powerful that word can be in our specific and personal situations when we open and expose them to the gospel. Whether in the corporate drama of
Dundee or in the quiet tranquillity of this service the God who is at work is the same God who will send his word ands heal those who come to him in Jesus’ name.