The Great Physician
Preaching
Pulpit Science Fiction
It's the first day for the new doctor at a rundown hospital, an institution that always has a lot of charity cases and is chronically short of money. The doctor who is coming has been preceded by a great reputation for being able to deal with a wide range of difficult cases. He has credentials from a first-rate school, a spectacular residency, several influential publications -- all the credentials a doctor could want. The people at the hospital are surprised that they were able to get him.
There are some on the staff who are skeptical and even jealous. "We don't need some high-powered academic," they've been saying. "We've got to have somebody who can handle the day-to-day routine here, not a wannabe Albert Schweitzer, slumming. We'll see pretty quickly how he deals with the real world!" But today they're being polite and keeping quiet about their doubts.
The new doctor is William Jones -- not a spectacular name. But when you keep his record in mind and then see him in the flesh, it seems almost too good to be true. He reminds you of one of the television doctors like Dr. Kildare or Peter Benton. Dressed in a well-tailored expensive suit, he's handsome and confident, exuding an air of care and competence.
There are introductions, a quick look at his new office, and then Dr. Jones wants to get right to work. One of the skeptics says, "I'm sure you'll want to see some of our difficult cases. And the ER -- we're understaffed there and we always have a lot of stabbing and gunshot cases coming in."
"We'll get there," Dr. Jones replies.
On their way through the halls they see overworked professionals hurrying on their rounds. They are near the waiting room for the Intensive Care Unit, where the patients with the most serious problems lie. Family members are keeping vigil. One old woman sits slumped over in a chair, weary and red eyed, twisting her purse in her hands. She's known that her husband is going to die soon, but it's so hard to give him up after nearly sixty years together.
Suddenly Doctor Jones stops and waves the other doctors and nurses and administrators back. He kneels next to the old woman and speaks quietly for a minute. He holds her hand, listens to her, and then says a few more words and she smiles at him. "Yes, I'm sure I'll be all right," she says. "I do need to rest. Thank you for talking to me." She is no longer crying.
The doctor gently disengages his hand and moves on with the others. As the nurses and other doctors explain procedures and point out problems, he continues to ask sharp questions. But they notice that he seems subdued and rather tired. His voice breaks once or twice, almost as if he were crying.
The group enters a unit with a number of AIDS patients. Several of the doctors glance at one another. These are sophisticated health care professionals with a lot of experience, and have gotten past their initial reactions to this disease, but in the back of their minds they remember that most of these people -- the sexually promiscuous, the drug users, the prostitutes -- are here because of their own actions. And, there is a more biting truth for doctors who are measured by their abilities to heal and keep people alive. Their advanced scientific knowledge can't really help these AIDS victims. Their patients are going to die, and doctors feel that they're failures when that happens.
Doctor Jones stops at the bed of a haggard young woman who has pneumonia and is gasping for breath. Her skin is blotchy and discolored with the ugly Kaposi's sarcoma that is typical of the disease. He glances at her chart -- IV drugs, prostitution -- doubly dangerous and doubly foolish. She doesn't have long to live.
The doctor again waves the others away. He sits at her bedside and, not stopping to put on rubber gloves, holds her hand and talks softly with her. He listens to her complain, for the hundredth time and with a great deal of truth, about being used by other people. He checks her chart again, makes a few notes, and suggests some changes in treatment to another doctor for whom he's motioned.
He gets up slowly as if he were tired, coughing a bit. He is not quite to the door when the woman suddenly sits up. "Are you feeling better?" asks a nurse.
"I am better!" she cries. "He healed me!" And amazingly, she does look healed. The other AIDS patients look at Doctor Jones with wonder and begin reaching out to try to touch him. But now he is wheezing loudly as he breathes. He looks old, and his elegant suit seems too big. At his wrists and beneath his loose collar can be seen purplish blotches.
They get out into the hall but the other professionals are concerned -- not just for him but for patients. His hands are trembling and he couldn't start an IV, let alone perform any major procedure. One of the skeptics mutters to another, "He'd better get back to his desk. Our patients are hard on the boy wonder."
He stops at the door of a room. Inside is an old man who is unconscious and beyond hope of recovery. His heart and lungs are still working, but his life is just a formality, now. Doctor Jones glances at the name on the door and walks into the room, up to the bedside. "John," he says in a weary voice. He leans on the side of the bed for support. "John," he says again. "Get up!"
Now the skeptics speak openly. "This is crazy! Does he think he's a miracle worker? We've got to get him out of here. He's falling apart." But the doctor repeats, "John -- Get up!" And John sits up and smiles. "Hi, Doc," he says. "Am I going home today?"
The doctor doesn't answer. He has collapsed on the floor. The nurses and doctors rush to him and see that his breathing has stopped. When they roll him over on his back they hardly recognize the handsome, confident young doctor. If he weren't wearing the same suit, which is now sagging all over the scrawny body, they wouldn't know that it was the man who had walked confidently into the hospital an hour ago. There is nothing handsome about him anymore. His eyes are red from weeping, his skin is discolored, and there is a trickle of blood from his mouth. He lies there disfigured and still.
One of the other doctors kneels beside him to check his pulse and breathing, and then looks up and says, "He's dead."
"But he healed those people."
"What should we do? What can we do?"
"We can't do anything."
See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. Just as there were many who were astonished at him -- so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals -- so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.
Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised and we held him of no account.
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
-- Isaiah 52:13--53:5
Comment
The fourth Servant Song of Isaiah is a traditional reading for Good Friday. The healing in this story can be understood either as a metaphor for salvation from sin, as it often is, or as the actual healing of physical and mental ills. The two are closely related: The Greek sozo in the New Testament can refer both to spiritual salvation and to physical healing, and in "salvation" in the fullest sense the two go together.
Part of the text from Isaiah, "He took our infirmities and bore our diseases," is quoted in Matthew 8:17 at the end of a series of stories about Jesus' healings of the sick. Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw this as a key to understanding all the work of the God revealed in Christ.
God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matthew 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.1
In this case, I think that it is probably more effective to read the text after the sermon rather than in its traditional position at the beginning.
This sermon was first preached on Good Friday of 1988, at a time when the prospect of any successful treatment for AIDS seemed very remote, so that the disease was even more of a stigma than it is today. Treatments have been developed in the intervening years, but I've chosen to keep the image quite grim. Other preachers might want to adapt this, and perhaps use other physical or mental ailments, in accord with the needs and concerns of their congregations.
____________
1.ÊDietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, enlarged edition (New York: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 360-361.
There are some on the staff who are skeptical and even jealous. "We don't need some high-powered academic," they've been saying. "We've got to have somebody who can handle the day-to-day routine here, not a wannabe Albert Schweitzer, slumming. We'll see pretty quickly how he deals with the real world!" But today they're being polite and keeping quiet about their doubts.
The new doctor is William Jones -- not a spectacular name. But when you keep his record in mind and then see him in the flesh, it seems almost too good to be true. He reminds you of one of the television doctors like Dr. Kildare or Peter Benton. Dressed in a well-tailored expensive suit, he's handsome and confident, exuding an air of care and competence.
There are introductions, a quick look at his new office, and then Dr. Jones wants to get right to work. One of the skeptics says, "I'm sure you'll want to see some of our difficult cases. And the ER -- we're understaffed there and we always have a lot of stabbing and gunshot cases coming in."
"We'll get there," Dr. Jones replies.
On their way through the halls they see overworked professionals hurrying on their rounds. They are near the waiting room for the Intensive Care Unit, where the patients with the most serious problems lie. Family members are keeping vigil. One old woman sits slumped over in a chair, weary and red eyed, twisting her purse in her hands. She's known that her husband is going to die soon, but it's so hard to give him up after nearly sixty years together.
Suddenly Doctor Jones stops and waves the other doctors and nurses and administrators back. He kneels next to the old woman and speaks quietly for a minute. He holds her hand, listens to her, and then says a few more words and she smiles at him. "Yes, I'm sure I'll be all right," she says. "I do need to rest. Thank you for talking to me." She is no longer crying.
The doctor gently disengages his hand and moves on with the others. As the nurses and other doctors explain procedures and point out problems, he continues to ask sharp questions. But they notice that he seems subdued and rather tired. His voice breaks once or twice, almost as if he were crying.
The group enters a unit with a number of AIDS patients. Several of the doctors glance at one another. These are sophisticated health care professionals with a lot of experience, and have gotten past their initial reactions to this disease, but in the back of their minds they remember that most of these people -- the sexually promiscuous, the drug users, the prostitutes -- are here because of their own actions. And, there is a more biting truth for doctors who are measured by their abilities to heal and keep people alive. Their advanced scientific knowledge can't really help these AIDS victims. Their patients are going to die, and doctors feel that they're failures when that happens.
Doctor Jones stops at the bed of a haggard young woman who has pneumonia and is gasping for breath. Her skin is blotchy and discolored with the ugly Kaposi's sarcoma that is typical of the disease. He glances at her chart -- IV drugs, prostitution -- doubly dangerous and doubly foolish. She doesn't have long to live.
The doctor again waves the others away. He sits at her bedside and, not stopping to put on rubber gloves, holds her hand and talks softly with her. He listens to her complain, for the hundredth time and with a great deal of truth, about being used by other people. He checks her chart again, makes a few notes, and suggests some changes in treatment to another doctor for whom he's motioned.
He gets up slowly as if he were tired, coughing a bit. He is not quite to the door when the woman suddenly sits up. "Are you feeling better?" asks a nurse.
"I am better!" she cries. "He healed me!" And amazingly, she does look healed. The other AIDS patients look at Doctor Jones with wonder and begin reaching out to try to touch him. But now he is wheezing loudly as he breathes. He looks old, and his elegant suit seems too big. At his wrists and beneath his loose collar can be seen purplish blotches.
They get out into the hall but the other professionals are concerned -- not just for him but for patients. His hands are trembling and he couldn't start an IV, let alone perform any major procedure. One of the skeptics mutters to another, "He'd better get back to his desk. Our patients are hard on the boy wonder."
He stops at the door of a room. Inside is an old man who is unconscious and beyond hope of recovery. His heart and lungs are still working, but his life is just a formality, now. Doctor Jones glances at the name on the door and walks into the room, up to the bedside. "John," he says in a weary voice. He leans on the side of the bed for support. "John," he says again. "Get up!"
Now the skeptics speak openly. "This is crazy! Does he think he's a miracle worker? We've got to get him out of here. He's falling apart." But the doctor repeats, "John -- Get up!" And John sits up and smiles. "Hi, Doc," he says. "Am I going home today?"
The doctor doesn't answer. He has collapsed on the floor. The nurses and doctors rush to him and see that his breathing has stopped. When they roll him over on his back they hardly recognize the handsome, confident young doctor. If he weren't wearing the same suit, which is now sagging all over the scrawny body, they wouldn't know that it was the man who had walked confidently into the hospital an hour ago. There is nothing handsome about him anymore. His eyes are red from weeping, his skin is discolored, and there is a trickle of blood from his mouth. He lies there disfigured and still.
One of the other doctors kneels beside him to check his pulse and breathing, and then looks up and says, "He's dead."
"But he healed those people."
"What should we do? What can we do?"
"We can't do anything."
See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. Just as there were many who were astonished at him -- so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals -- so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.
Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised and we held him of no account.
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
-- Isaiah 52:13--53:5
Comment
The fourth Servant Song of Isaiah is a traditional reading for Good Friday. The healing in this story can be understood either as a metaphor for salvation from sin, as it often is, or as the actual healing of physical and mental ills. The two are closely related: The Greek sozo in the New Testament can refer both to spiritual salvation and to physical healing, and in "salvation" in the fullest sense the two go together.
Part of the text from Isaiah, "He took our infirmities and bore our diseases," is quoted in Matthew 8:17 at the end of a series of stories about Jesus' healings of the sick. Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw this as a key to understanding all the work of the God revealed in Christ.
God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matthew 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.1
In this case, I think that it is probably more effective to read the text after the sermon rather than in its traditional position at the beginning.
This sermon was first preached on Good Friday of 1988, at a time when the prospect of any successful treatment for AIDS seemed very remote, so that the disease was even more of a stigma than it is today. Treatments have been developed in the intervening years, but I've chosen to keep the image quite grim. Other preachers might want to adapt this, and perhaps use other physical or mental ailments, in accord with the needs and concerns of their congregations.
____________
1.ÊDietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, enlarged edition (New York: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 360-361.
