December 17: The Messiah as Healer
♫ Music:
Day 19 - Thursday, December 17
Title: THE MESSIAH AS HEALER
Scripture: Isaiah 35:5-6
Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing. For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.
Poetry:
Visitors
by Tu Fu
(Translated by Kenneth Roxroth)
I have had asthma for a
Long time. It seems to improve
Here in this house by the river.
It is quiet too. No crowds
Bother me. I am brighter
And more rested. I am happy here.
When someone calls at my thatched hut
My son brings me my straw hat
And I go out and gather
A handful of fresh vegetables.
It isn’t much to offer.
But it is given in friendship.
THE MESSIAH AS HEALER
I love the serenity of sitting by a body of water and contemplating life. The poet Tu Fu describes this serenity as he shares about his home by the river. These sacred places bring serenity and peace to the soul.
One such fountain that I have visited is the Bethesda Fountain found in busy Central Park. The sculpture The Angel of the Waters by Emma Stebbins is the centerpiece. This artwork references the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem where Jesus healed a man who had been paralyzed. It wasn’t the waters or an angel that healed him, but the Messiah himself who spoke the words “Rise, take up your bed and walk” (John 5:8).
In times of sickness or distress it is easy to question whether the Messiah is still healer. We read Isaiah 35:5-6 and wonder “Could Jesus bring healing in this situation or bring streams in this desert?” We ask ourselves whether we can sing in full belief the words of Handel’s Messiah “Then Shall the Eyes of the Blind be Opened.”
In July 1997, I was in a place of questioning as I found myself sitting beside another fountain. I had arrived at the retreat center in order to seek the Lord in solitude and “stand on my watch and see what the Lord would say to me” (Hab 2:1). At the age of 31, I was not prepared for the cancer diagnosis, and seemingly endless physician visits, scans, and tests. I was still processing the words of the oncologist, that the tumor had spread beyond its initial site and that it would likely return before my 40th birthday. Understanding the grim ramifications of the single-digit 5-year survival rate, I felt my heart’s restlessness as I pressed in to seek the Lord and his answer for that season. I was fearful, I was confused, and I was in desperate need of Messiah as healer.
As I look back on my journals in that season, I can now see how the Lord faithfully met me beside that fountain during my retreat. Even though I didn’t receive the confirmation of physical healing that I sought, I experienced Jesus, was encouraged by Scripture, and the Holy Spirit brought me to a place of peace. Over that decade as doctors regularly checked my fluctuating tumor-markers, the Lord replaced my fear of death with an anticipation of heaven. I learned to intercede for those who would lay in the scans after me and for those who joined me in waiting rooms. My grief over health lost was exchanged with a passion to live and go wherever He called with however many days He would give me.
The portrait by Walter Rane depicting the miraculous healing of the blind man shows Jesus’ gentle touch and compassionate countenance. Although I still find serenity sitting beside fountains and bodies of water, it is Jesus that I seek. Much like the blind man, my life has been forever altered due to the Lord’s healing touch and the Spirit’s peace and presence.
Prayer:
Precious Lord,
I thank you that you are compassionate, that you are present and that, Messiah, you are healer. Father, during this disruptive season of COVID-19 would you help us to spend time at your feet. Please give our hearts courage to seek you in the times when what we feel is silence. Open our eyes to your purposes and open our ears to your Word. Help us trust that you will break forth in this wilderness season like streams in the desert and accomplish your will in and through it all.
Amen
Dr. Suzanne Welty
Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork #1:
The Angel of the Waters (Bethesda Fountain)
Emma Stebbins
1868
Bronze
8 ft. tall
Bethesda Terrace in Central Park
Manhattan, New York
Photo: Brian Jannsen / Alamy Stock Photo
Angel of the Waters fountain sits in Bethesda Terrace in Manhattan’s Central Park. Designed by Emma Stebbins, it was built to celebrate the Croton Aqueduct completed in 1842, which brought safe drinking water to New York City and had a dramatic effect on public health. An eight-foot-tall angel stands with one foot outstretched upon the upper basin of the fountain, wings spread wide and robes flowing behind her. In one hand she holds a lily, while the other is extended in a gesture of benediction. The basin on which she stands shelters four cherubs representing health, purity, temperance, and peace. Stebbins’s Angel of the Waters alludes to John 5:4, which explains that the sick visited Bethesda because ‘an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had.’ Stebbins’s Angel mirrors the Angel of Bethesda as an agent of healing, celebrating the health benefits of clean water for the city.
Edited from a commentary by Naomi Billingsley
https://thevcs.org/index.php/pool-bethesda/healing-city
About the Artist #1:
Emma Stebbins (1815-1882) was an American sculptor and the first woman to receive a public art commission from New York City. She was best-known for her work Angel of the Waters located in Central Park, New York. The daughter of a wealthy banker, John L. Stebbins, Emma was encouraged in the arts. Stebbins worked in a neoclassical style and made about two dozen small-scale marble statues and two public works in bronze. Until age forty she worked as an amateur painter and sculptor in her upper middle-class home in New York City. In 1857, sponsored by her brother Henry, head of the New York Stock Exchange, Emma moved to Rome where she was welcomed into the American expatriate community of artists. During the early 1860s, Stebbins was awarded three major public commissions – more than any American woman had obtained to that date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Stebbins
https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2015/05/emma-stebbins.html
About the Artwork #2:
He Anointed the Eyes of the Blind Man
Walter Rane
1991
Oil on canvas
20 x 35”
In this painting of Christ healing a blind man, artist Walter Rane emphasizes the actual healing process by focusing on painting two sets of hands: Christ’s hands lovingly stretched forth with tenderness and healing and the blind man’s twisted and anxious hands as he is being healed.
http://www.ldsart.com/p-20633-he-anointed-the-eyes.aspx
About the Artist #2:
Walter Rane (b. 1949) is an American artist who began his career as primarily a book and magazine illustrator but now specializes in religious art. Rane was raised in Southern California and received his BFA at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. There he found the traditional approach to drawing and painting that he desired. That discipline, combined with an emphasis on the human figure, remains central to his art today. Following graduation from Art Center, Rane worked as a free-lance book and magazine illustrator in the New York area for twenty-one years, where he illustrated such works as Meet Kit: An American Girl by Valerie Tripp. He also illustrated the Franklin Library 1978 edition of William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom. In the late 1990s Rane began to paint scriptural themes in a classical fashion. These subjects continue to be an important part of his work, along with still lifes, landscapes, cityscapes and scenes of contemporary life. Rane and his wife currently live in New York City. They have four sons, two daughters-in-law and three grandchildren.
http://www.walterraneprints.com/
Music #1:
“God Will Heal Our Wounds (I Long for a World)” from the album Tu Amor
Lyrics:
I long for a world
Where souls actively seek out the truth
And buy into something
Privilege could never afford
I long for the chance to exist
Free of society’s silent plea
For me to explain and defend
My culture
My body
My worth
My own self
Are these things not deserving of the
Carefree
‘Gone with the wind’
‘I woke up like this’
Taste of freedom that my
Privileged friends have always known?
Liberty coupled with fear of
Becoming a hashtag
Doesn’t feel like freedom at all
This don't feel like freedom at all
If we stop loving on our own terms
God will heal our wounds,
God will heal our wounds.
If we stop loving on our own terms
Grace will lead us home
Grace will lead us home
I long for the day
When tokenism is deemed
Unacceptable, illegal even sinful
To the human psyche
A day when I can be me
And you can be you
A day when money and power
Don’t pose as the ultimate threat
To human decency and dignity
But is instead used to
Level every playing field
A day when individuality is the
Dissonant chord that offers
New meaning, excitement and intrigue
I long for a world I may never see
If we stop loving on our own terms
God will heal our wounds,
God will heal our wounds
If we stop loving on our own terms
Grace will lead us home
Grace will lead us home
Performers:
Common Hymnal, Brittney Spencer and Will Reagan
Common Hymnal is a collaborative Christian community from diverse backgrounds that is building a virtual library to facilitate a vital and ongoing exchange of worship songs, stories, and ideas. Starting with a focus on songs, their mission has expanded into a hybrid library/gallery/theater that curates a broad spectrum of creative expression, including poetry, prose, spoken word, painting, illustration, sculpture, design, animation, film, theater, and dance. Using social media to facilitate their outreach, they curate art created by people on the outskirts of Christendom who are serious and passionate about their pursuit of Jesus.
https://commonhymnal.com/
Brittney Spencer is a singer/songwriter with a free spirit and a love for molding life, truth and wild imagination into songs. Her love for storytelling landed her in Nashville in 2013 with dreams of singing and writing country music. Brittney credits much of her musical foundation to what she learned and experienced growing up in church. She’s since traveled, sung, and recorded with United Pursuit, Carrie Underwood, Carl Thomas, Jason Nelson and Twinkie Clark of The Clark Sisters, to name a few. In 2017, Brittney graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a degree in public relations, with a concentration in music business. Her love for storytelling and finding unique ways to convey the human experience through the lens of faith found its way into the Common Hymnal family in 2016.
https://commonhymnal.com/brittney-spencer
Will Reagan is a Christian singer/songwriter based in Knoxville, Tennessee. With his quiet, acoustic guitar picking and plaintive voice, his worship songs are largely folk-driven. In 2006, he and several other like-minded songwriters and players formed a musical collective called United Pursuit. The group members perform each other's songs and release independent albums under the collective's umbrella. Reagan released his solo debut, Beginning to Love You, in 2006 followed by 2009's In the Night Season, which was credited to Will Reagan & United Pursuit. His next two albums, Live at the Banks House (2010) and Endless Years (2012), were also made with the collective. He has received two Dove awards and two Grammy awards for his music.
https://willreagan.com/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3P9Tb34QQEWyjm1pYdPfOP
Composers/Lyricists:
Aaron Strumpel, Brittney Spencer, Dee Wilson, and Will Reagan
Aaron Strumpel is a singer/songwriter and worship leader. Strumpel has toured through 45 states and internationally to Rwanda, Uganda, Gaza, Israel, Haiti, and much of Europe, Central and South America. His international work has given him a sense of the beauty and diversity of the people of God and has informed his songs with the sort of simplicity and honesty that translates between cultures. His time on staff at a local fellowship instilled in him a centeredness and pastoral heart, which also serves to ground his artistry and leadership. He is currently producing with other artists in his studio and is working with the Common Hymnals community.
http://www.aaronstrumpel.com/about
Dee Wilson is a worship leader and creative content producer for Faith Church in Dyer, Indiana. You can listen to lots of his work via the worship collective Common Hymnal. Dee is God’s kid, Jen’s husband and Adelle’s dad.
https://commonhymnal.com/dee-wilson
Music #2:
Messiah, HWV 56, Pt. 1: 20. Then Shall the Eyes of the Blind Be Opened
Lyrics:
Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened,
and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then shall the lame man leap as an hart,
and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.
Messiah Performers/Musicians/Lyricists/Composer:
Unless otherwise noted, all Messiah performances are by Margaret Marshall, Catherine Robbin, Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, Robert Hale, Charles Brett, Saul Quirke, the English Baroque Soloists, and the Monteverdi Choir conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Biographical information for the performers and musicians can be found by clicking here.
About the Poet:
Tu Fu (712–770) is considered with Li Po to be one of China’s greatest poets of the Tang Dynasty. Though he studied for the civil service exam to become a civil servant, Tu Fu failed to pass his exams and so spent many years traveling. His early poems thread together incidents from his travels and personal accounts of the hardships he endured. Tu Fu is often described as a poet-historian, and his works convey the emotional impact and import of political and social issues and reveal a range of private concerns, trials, and dramas. His works reveal his loyalty and love of the country, his dreams and frustrations, and his empathy for the sad status of the common people. He was an eyewitness to the historical events in a critical period that saw a great, prosperous nation ruined by military rebellions and wars with border tribes.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tu-fu
https://www.notablebiographies.com/Tu-We/Tu-Fu.html#ixzz6Y9CG0LNs
About the Devotion Author:
Dr. Suzanne Welty
Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Biola University
Suzanne Welty is an Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Biola University who earned her EdD in Educational Leadership, Teaching and Learning from Azusa Pacific University. Welty specializes in diagnosing and remediating communication, behavioral and social challenges of individuals diagnosed with Autism and other developmental disabilities. In addition, Welty has a passion for missions and has spent many summers in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Germany, and finds joy in visiting, praying for, and encouraging those who are serving Christ world-wide.