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.
