Luke 4:40-42 Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them to him… We have here a picture of Jesus as the Great Physician of soul and body, the Divine restorer of health to both body and mind. It is never to be forgotten how He thus met the sufferings of humanity, and brought effective deliverance as none other ever could or ever will bring, to a world ever groaning and travailing in pain. And what He did then, He is doing still. We cannot now see His earthly Form, nor do we look for miracles to be wrought upon us; but each of us has his own peculiar care or trouble, and needs the Divine Physician to relieve his distress. 1. True, there are earthly reliefs, and it is our duty to make proper use of them; but they are all more or less temporary and fleeting. (1) For the body: medical relief and advice, &c. Yet these can give no immunity from disease. And most remedies soon lose their power. (2) For the mind: distraction, pleasure, &c. These also are but the results of the experience of others, but they have no last in them, and they may only make the pain worse to bear than before. 2. True also, that if present relief is not to be had, we may still be buoyed up by earthly hope. But alas! how often is this but "hope deferred," which "makes the heart sick"; and how often is the miserable and weary sufferer brought to such a state that the only earthly hope left him is the hope that he may soon be done with earth altogether, and his poor pained body be laid to rest in the grave! Oh, how vain are all earthly hopes, and how doomed to disappointment are those who trust in them. But, thank God! our Christian philosophy is not so cold. We have more than this. I. A PRESENT HELP. We have learned that present, earthly, personal comfort is not such a grand object after all; that there are higher things, and better things, within our reach. What are these? Growing better, being sanctified, making this life not an end but a beginning and preparation for a higher and better life. Not only so, but we can go to Jesus as truly as could the friends at Capernaum, and help to take our sufferers there. Nor have we far to go. He is always at hand, and always accessible. Moreover, He is unchangeable; not like earthly friends and comforts, but always the same; the truest help in any and every kind of suffering — whether of mind, body, or estate, as many a soul has proved, in sickness, poverty, anxiety, loneliness. II. A FUTURE HOPE. If, in spite of every aid, the burdens of life press heavily on us, we have more than the silence of the grave to look for; we know that while our body sleeps, our soul is with Christ in paradise, and that one day there will be a happy reunion. Conclusion: Let us first find the way ourselves to this present help and future hope, and then we shall be able to point our friends to it and to Jesus who is indeed our only help and our only hope. And then, one word more for our comfort. You will remember that our blessed Lord was not done with the sufferers when He laid His hands upon them and conferred present relief in trouble. They might go home with glad hearts, and enjoy the blessing of God, but a time would come when they might again suffer in body or in mind, and when they would at last have to give up all hope of earthly remedy. But Jesus was not forgetting them. Tired and wearied as He was, He rose up a great while before day, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. He was blessing them even more in His absence than while with them in bodily presence. Even so is it still with the sufferers and with the healed. Jesus is not only ever blessing us with divine comfort and strength, but He is pleading for us with the Father. He knows the pain of each heart, and He will bless us and it for our good if we will but go to Him. (George Low, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. |
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