The Cross in the Recovery Room

Introduction

Healing.  The restoration from sickness to health.  Not the most popular metaphor of salvation. 

Maybe because sin is seldom seen as sickness, or a pathology.

Maybe because healing takes time.  Legal metaphor take little time.  Justified.  Made right.  Didn’t take much time at all.

    Maybe because healing takes time.  Legal metaphor take little time.  Justified.  Made right.  Didn’t take much time at all.

Maybe because healing is more complicated.  Pathology.  Sickness.  Healing.  It’s too messy.  Too imprecise.

        Maybe because healing is more complicated.  Pathology.  Sickness.  Healing.  It’s too messy.  Too imprecise.

            Maybe because it undermines salvation by grace.

But this is one of the metaphors of salvation in Scripture.  Can’t ignore it.

  is perhaps the one text in Scripture that captures salvation as healing.  

But what does God mean with the phrase “by his wounds”—or more correctly, “by his wounding,”—“we have been healed”?  

What does it take to be healed by Jesus’ wounding?

1. It takes accepting

To be healed by Jesus’ wounding takes acceptance of salvation as a gift of grace (1:3, 6, 8)

2. It takes committing

To be healed by Jesus’ wounding takes commitment to parting ways with sins (1:13, 2:11; 1:14, 17; 2:13, 17, 19)

3. It takes understanding

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross,” needs a simple explanation.  What does it mean?

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross,” needs a simple explanation.  What does it mean?It is easy to assume, based on clear biblical evidence elsewhere, that this phrase speaks of Jesus’ substitutionary death.  “He carried our sins…”Until we look closer and notice that bore is like a square peg whittled down to fit into a round hole.  The word αναφερω  here does not mean “to carry,” but to “take away.”What we have in is not another evidence of substitutionary nature of Jesus’ death on the cross.  Peter assumes this, but does not talk about it.God’s concern in is finding someone to look up to as you commit to part way with your sins.You ever feel like you struggles with your sinful desires is a lonely, impossible road?  Well, is God’s answer to your cries for someone to lookup to.Let me see if we can clear up the translation a bit:  He himself took away our sins in his body to the cross.A man was headed home in his Toyota Corolla, driving on the freeway.  He unintentionally cuts a pickup truck off changing lanes.  The pickup truck driver was not happy.  He tailgates the Corolla, and shadows him for over ten minutes. He flips his headlights on and off.   And his middle finger, too.  Road rage is on.  The man in the Corolla gets really nervous, because the pickup truck is not relenting.  So he takes an off ramp in the hopes that the pickup truck would not follow.  He’s still behind him like a shadow.  He sees a police car, parks his car next to it, and watches the pickup truck pass him, the driver giving him the look.  And he drives home, shaking.  Jesus, dogged by all the sins we humans commit all day long, remained faithful to God through the suffering and pain.  By staying faithful to God all the way to his death, he accomplished what all of us combined are never able to accomplish on our own.  Jesus took all these sins that hung around him like shadows and showed what it was like to die for God without succumbing to our sins.  

It is easy to assume, based on clear biblical evidence elsewhere, that this phrase speaks of Jesus’ substitutionary death.  “He carried our sins…”

To be healed by Jesus’ wounding takes a positive vision of life as an opportunity to do what’s right.

Until we look closer and notice that bore is like a square peg whittled down to fit into a round hole.  The word αναφερω  here does not mean “to carry,” but to “take away.”

What we have in is not another evidence of substitutionary nature of Jesus’ death on the cross.  Peter assumes this, but does not talk about it.

God’s concern in is finding someone to look up to as you commit to part way with your sins.You ever feel like you struggles with your sinful desires is a lonely, impossible road?  Well, is God’s answer to your cries for someone to lookup to.Let me see if we can clear up the translation a bit:  He himself took away our sins in his body to the cross.

A man was headed home in his Toyota Corolla, driving on the freeway.  He unintentionally cuts a pickup truck off changing lanes.  The pickup truck driver was not happy.  He tailgates the Corolla, and shadows him for over ten minutes. He flips his headlights on and off.   And his middle finger, too.  Road rage is on.  The man in the Corolla gets really nervous, because the pickup truck is not relenting.  So he takes an off ramp in the hopes that the pickup truck would not follow.  He’s still behind him like a shadow.  He sees a police car, parks his car next to it, and watches the pickup truck pass him, the driver giving him the look.  And he drives home, shaking.  

Jesus, dogged by all the sins we humans commit all day long, remained faithful to God through the suffering and pain.  By staying faithful to God all the way to his death, he accomplished what all of us combined are never able to accomplish on our own.  

Jesus took all these sins that hung around him like shadows and showed what it was like to go to your death totally faithful to God.  

4. It takes living

To be healed by Jesus’ wounding takes a positive vision of life as an opportunity to do what’s right.

Simply overcoming besetting sins is not the goal of life.

“Hey, guess what?”  “What?”  “I overcame another sin today!”  On to the next one! —Perfect scenario for perfectionism.

The goal of the healed life is not so much the total eradication of sins in your life as much as the positive vision of living do do what’s right.

Conclusion

Two Mondays ago, I flew to San Diego to be with my mother.  Hip-replacement surgery.   I slept by her bedside  for two nights in the recovery room.  Cleaned her room during the day.  Jam packed.  She wouldn’t let my brother or sister touch her stuff.  But she let me.  So I did.  Took away lots of folded and stacked clothes she hadn’t used for years.  Cleaned her closet of over thirty new purses.  Books.  Magazines.  Pictures.  Dust.  So she could go home to a clean, organized room.  For therapy.

Therapy.  I needed one myself.  I paid for cleaning my mother’s room.  Still am.  Flared up my left shoulder, which I had injured my left shoulder ligaments sometime between our move to NorCal and during our stay in our cramped trailer.  Back to taking ibuprofen, hot pack, stretches and strengthening, and cold packs.  Brought some of my tools here today.  

It’s deja vu all over again!  Four years ago, had the same injury on my right shoulder.  It took me a good part of two years to recover.  Two years of therapy.  Two years of healing.  No healing takes place overnight.  It is a lifetime process.  

And what a process!

It’s hard for us to imagine salvation as healing.  Healing belongs to the recovery room.  At the hospital.  Not salvation.

But teaches us to look at this precious gift of new birth, and new life a different way.

For to see salvation as healing means to take the Cross of Jesus Christ and apply it holistically—to the restoration of our entire selves—our will, our thoughts, our feelings, our bodies, our social webs—to healthy conditions never before experienced by you.  

Peter puts it all together as the healing of our all our desires so that we may singularly desire God.

The Cross is in the recovery room.  And you’re in it.  Keep up the therapy.  Don’t give up!  The Spirit is with you to keep applying the merits of Jesus’ life, deaths and resurrection to your ongoing therapy.