333 Words

333 WORDS….

Have you noticed that The Word never records any of the twelve being disabled? No sprained ankles, no migraines, no hernias, no toothaches. Not in the three years they walked with Lord Jesus, nor afterward.

Why is that?

There were sick folk all around them, sometimes pressing from all sides. Sniffling kids, coughing grannies, sneezing pharisees.

Contagious lepers.

An air flight is a common place to catch something nasty simply because many share a confined space. At times the twelve were compressed by the infirmed desperate to touch The Healer, squeezed in the melee as they protected their Lord from being crushed.

Weren’t there flu bugs back then?

Certainly they didn’t wear protective gloves when they themselves laid “hands on the sick”. Yet there is no indication they contracted the afflictions of others.

Psalm 91 is a treasury of promises of protection for “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High”, the “Most High” being our Lord Jesus. Could it be that the twelve’s proximity to Christ, relationally speaking, was their protection?

In Christ’s universal church there has always been the near, the far and the in-between, those relationally close, those relationally distant, and those somewhere between. Could it be our protection is relative to the value of relationship with Christ? Even precisely so?  

The pitiable traitor excluded, the apostles were obviously well bonded to their Master. After “He was parted from them and carried up into heaven” they were still sufficiently bonded to be protected. Since “God is no respecter of persons”, will He not protect all who are relationally knitted to Him?

If yes, why is His church populated by so many enfeebled? And what does the medical condition of the church tell of its spiritual condition?

There’s ample reason to fear pride and self-ness and lukewarm-ness; the proud, the self-centered and the tepid merit insufficient safeguard.

Protection requires far less faith than healing. Once entrenched, infirmity is difficult to expel. The wise maintain companionship with their Protector.