Physician Heal Thyself


Luke 4:23

And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. 

I was driving back from my brother's yesterday. It was initially a gray day with sparse falling snow and a cold wind that etched my soul. Since I had camped out the night before and stuck around for the Popover breakfast, I decided to miss Church. I know that not going to Church is a bad habit to fall into. However, I don't want to get legalistic about it. I was an hour and a half from home and began the long drive westward.

In an attempt to resolve myself of guilt for missing Church, I searched the AM dial for a religious service. I settled upon a broadcast of a Mass from EWTN which is the Catholic version of the 700 Club. It was kind of old school because the Mass was mixing both Latin and English. I found the mystery and the clarity of it intriguing. The English was a recitation of well-established theology...body given for you and blood for the remission of sins. It is a very good thing to be reminded weekly of Christ broken for me. Although I don't buy the whole transubstantiation deal. Catholic mumbo-jumbo and just another instance of a good gone bad in their dogma.

The Latin seemed like utterances from a different world. And in a way, it was. Latin is a dead language yet lives in much of what we say incarnationally due to it being the root of Western European languages.  That got me thinking that a little mystery is a good thing. We evangelicals love steps and formulas, and a little Latin reminded me that God is quite a lot bigger than we might imagine.

After the Mass ended, there was a program on EWTN about the verse in Luke where Jesus states the aphorism "Physician, Heal Thyself" in response to the crowd crowing towards Him something along the lines, "Hey Big Shot, give us home team Nazareth folk some of the miracles you have been performing in Capernaum. And now! Or else." On one hand, they believed that He could do the miracles. On the other hand, their attitude just simply sucked. So presumptive, as if Jesus was just a dog doing tricks. It says in the Bible that Jesus did not do miracles in their midst, besides some healings, because of their unbelief. Then, they wanted to toss Him off a cliff because He had the audacity to call them out because of their bad attitude.

They had Jesus all figured out. They knew His number. No mystery. Jesus went Latin on them....

        

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