Monday, August 12, 2019

THE WOUNDED HEALER



                Last Sunday night, following the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio where 31were killed and many more injured, Sixty Minutes replayed an earlier story about a couple whose daughter was killed in the Colorado Theater shooting several years ago. This couple who understood what it meant to lose a loved one that way began going to the site of mass shootings and offering their understanding, compassion and support to those whose loved ones had been killed. Often, it is those who have suffered who can help the most because they know how others feel. They become what Henri Nouen called, “wounded healers.”

                Also, fresh in my mind was a story I had just read which also makes clear how “wounded healers” can provide what we really need.  The story was told by Helmut Thielicke, a German theologian and pastor, who preached in the Stuttgart Cathedral during the Second World War. The Allies made Stuttgart a major target and bombed it mercilessly and repeatedly. The Cathedral was destroyed and then his home was destroyed. He went to a village nearby that had not been bombed hoping to find a house for his family. There he had a peculiar experience. As he walked through the village, he remembered how he had tried in his mind to escape the sight of bombed out ruins and suffering people by imagining that he lived in a quiet village, where neighbors sat on their porches, greeting passers-by with warmth and friendliness.  By this he hoped to find peace in his heart. But as he walked through the village, he did not find peace. Instead, the idyllic scene was tormenting rather than tranquilizing. He said, “it drove me back to the ruined city and the people whose faces were still marked by the runes of terror. There I felt at home. They understood what I had gone through because they had suffered it themselves. There is nothing more comforting than to have people who understand one.”* They were his wounded healers.

                In our struggles, when we are tested and fail, when we are in a war, as Paul says in Ephesians, “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of his age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness,” we too have a “wounded healer.” He is our commander in chief, but he does not sit in a heavenly office sending out commands and comforting messages. He is in the trenches with us. Hebrews 2:18 says, “Because he himself was tested by what he suffered he is able to help those who are being tested.” He knows what it is like.

The prophet Isaiah described our wounded healer this way: “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed” (Isa 53:4-5).

                In the upper room Jesus pointed to himself as our wounded healer when the took the bread and blessed it and broke it and said, “this is my body, given for you.” And also, the cup, saying, “This is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.”
  
 *Thielicke, Helmut. Christ and the Meaning of Life. New York: Harper and Rowe, 1962, 16-17.




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