The Hands of a Physician
The following is a sermon delivered by student Andy Golla in St. Mary’s Chapel on the Feast of St. Luke, October 18, 2022.
“He who sins before his Maker,
may he fall into the hands of a physician.”
(Eccl. 38:15)
It is a fact—frequently undiagnosed—that underneath every human longing, we want so desperately to see God. We want so desperately to be swaddled in his love. We want so desperately to feel his Holy Wind billowing in our clothes, gusting in our hair, filling up our lungs. He is Life—and we want to live forever. But tragically, though we seek true and unending life, we do not possess it. We vomit and wheeze. We shrivel and hemorrhage. We sicken—and it is not merely our bodies that show signs of sickness. In the strongest economies in the world, children starve to death on the street corner. Marriages turn venomous and violent. Shoppers trample each other in a rush for the perfect Christmas gift. Is this the life we intended? The life we sought? No. But we must admit, it is the life we have made for ourselves. Human flourishing is not merely obstructed but self-sabotaged. The good we grope after we crush in our grasping hands. And thus, the prayer book calls us “miserable offenders”—miserable, because though we ache to worship in Spirit and in truth, by our own wickedness we suppress it.
The stories and parables of Luke’s Gospel, populated as they are by the sick, the demonized, and the oppressed, show that the good doctor was well acquainted with the miserableness of the human condition. After all, a doctor’s work is never finished—as soon as you heal one sick person, another is there to take her place. And how many times did Luke have to say, “I’m sorry”? How many times did he watch a patient worsen because they had been extorted out of the money they needed to afford better care? I think that it was only by fighting so long in the trenches that Luke was able to grasp the truth that transcended him: our problem is not the presence of sickness but the absence of health. In other words, it is our ontological infirmity. Our lack of strength. Our weak lungs. Our withered roots. In our infirmity, we are powerless over the sin that twists, tortures, and destroys us. Our sins are stronger than we are. Our lives have become unmanageable.
But let the doctor tell us good news. Let us hear Luke’s gospel. And the gospel is this: there is a power greater than ourselves, who is able to restore us to sanity. There is one who:
“forgives all our sins
and heals all our infirmities;
who redeems our life from the grave
and crowns us with mercy and loving-kindness.” (Psalm 103:3-5)
There is one of whom it is written,
“The LORD is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation,” (Isaiah 12:2)
Who says,
“turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:22)
And to we who were dead through our trespasses and sins, God indeed sent a Savior. In the incarnate Son, God embraced the sickness of our world. He put his hand to a forehead hot with fever. He touched the skin of a man riddled with infectious disease. He did not turn his face from a woman with endometriosis. He braved the stormy seas to free a man shackled by demons and death. He knew greed at the temple, mercilessness in the synagogue, wrath in the familiarity of his hometown. He felt the grope of a hundred hands desperate for healing. His capillaries burst in anguish in the garden. All alone, his shoulders bore the weight of the world. And he—the strongest man who ever lived—took the infirmity of the world into himself that it might die with him. He faced the sting of death—he overcame the sting of death—and rose again in the power of the Spirit of Life, bringing to completion the promise that was spoken in the Scriptures:
“Do not fear, O Zion;
let not your hands grow weak.
The LORD your God is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love.” (Zephaniah 3:16-17)
Friends, a doctor may be able to heal you of your sickness, a politician may legislate around social ills, and perhaps for a time even you may be able to strong-arm your way through temptation. But sickness, systemic injustice, sin—they all spring from a deeper infirmity that we cannot get behind, beat down, or bargain with.
I’m sorry.
The diagnosis is terminal.
But take heart. After our eyes dim, and our strength fails, and our bones crumble to dust, there is one who is mighty to save us. May we who sin before our Maker fall into the hands of such a Physician. May he nurse our wounds with mercy and color our cheeks with hope. And on that Day, may his Spirit gather our dust back together. Synapses firing, nostrils open, bones reconstituted, joy kindled in our chest—and ventricle and atrium sing once more their song:
Thank you. Jesus. Thank you.
Blessed are those who put their trust in him.
Andy Golla, age 25, is a senior at Nashotah House Theological Seminary. Andy was born in Greenville, South Carolina. He is currently an aspirant discerning Holy Orders in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas through the sponsorship of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, McKinney.
