Four Cries for Healers

by John V. Upton, Executive Director

A month or two ago I stopped and had coffee with a pastor friend en route to an associational meeting.  In that conversation my friend reminded me of a mission trip we had taken together when I was director of Partnership Missions.  We went to the town of Litomerice in the Czech Republic.  While there, we were invited to attend a concert at a nearby town called Teracin.  During World War II the Nazis converted Teracin into a concentration camp for Jewish artisans from all over Europe.  The concert was a memorial concert sponsored by the current German government, expressing its grief over the cruelty of the Nazi troops. 

The German orchestra that day played the very same requiem the Jewish musicians in the concentration camp played to the visiting Red Cross in 1940.  The Red Cross visited the camp one time during the war to investigate living conditions.  The Jewish musicians were marched from their cells to the stage, which was built in front of a wall pocked with bullet holes from prior executions.  They intentionally played the requiem to subtly communicate to the Red Cross investigation team that they were soon to be shot.  The Red Cross did not get the subtle message, but the Nazi guards and officers did.  The guards and officers laughed at the sight of the Jewish musicians playing a requiem, a funeral dirge and their own at that.  All the musicians were later shot.

The day the two of us were there the German orchestra marched out of the same cells as did the Jewish musicians and played the same music.  The concert was called a “Healing Concert.”  More than fifty years later there was still a cry for healing.

The next day the two of us ate lunch with Petr Cervinsky, General Secretary of the Czech Baptist Union, in the town center of Litomerice.  I noticed a tall black obelisk.  We wondered if it too were a memorial from the Nazi occupation.  Petr told us that it wasn’t.  It was a memorial to those who had died from the bubonic plaque.  Litomerice was quarantined for a long period of time because of the contagiousness of the plaque.  The residents were left to do as best they could against the ravages of the disease.  Some people suffered silently; others complained loudly.  Some were heroic, others oppressive, and some had compassion for the sick and dying.  Still others totally ignored the sick, and some even stole from them. 

It was from Litomerice that Albert Camus got his inspiration for his classic novel, The Plaque.  In Camus’ novel there is a conversation between two main characters, both having done what they could to help those sick and dying.  Late one evening, absolutely exhausted, they talk about the situation.  The conversation moves to their understanding of life’s purpose.  One character concludes that life has diseases and victims and our goal is that we should at least not join forces with the diseases.  Then he adds a thought: we are to be “true healers.”  True healers care for the victim and bring peace.

The third cry for healing occurred last October.   A divorce recovery group was meeting at a church.  There were about 120 people present, all of whom were in the midst of getting a divorce.  The pain and hurt in the room was actually visible.  The topic of that particular evening was fear.  In 45 minutes all kinds of fears were voiced: fear of living alone, of losing the children, of doing the books, of finding a lawyer and going to court, of losing their home, of losing their friends, of other people knowing their private shame, and wondering if anyone would ever love them again.  These are only a few.  It was evident that evening that what was needed was healing.  None of the fears could ever be conquered unless some kind of healing occurred.  Who could bring such healing?

The final experience happened a few days ago when I met with a group of pastors who have been terminated from their churches in the past year.  I’ll never forget one pastor who summed up the time together as well as it could be summed up.  He said, “John, when I entered the ministry I thought I would be the Good Samaritan helping those along the road of life.  What I never anticipated is that I would be the one in the ditch.  And what hurts the most is that my fellow pastors, when they see me, walk to the other side of the road and walk right on by.”  What was needed was a Good Samaritan to bind up their wounds.

All these experiences remind me that each of us has been wounded, some of us more than others, but we all have been wounded.  At some point in our lives, each of us has been overwhelmed and fallen victim to something very painful.  Maybe it was a physical disability or an emotional distress.  Maybe it was the loss of a loved one, a disappointment in a relationship, a loss of job or reputation.  It could be as internal as a lost dream or as public as an insult or humiliation or careless word of a friend or church member.  Whatever the cause may have been, each of us has been wounded in some way.  Each of us has had time in the ditch as a wounded traveler.  And those who we thought would help only glanced briefly and passed by on the other side.

The good news of our faith is that there is one who will bind up our wounds.  His name is Jesus Christ and because of him we experience healing.  He heals us not that we should just be grateful patients. He heals us to commission us to be healers in his name in the world.  Having been healed by Christ, we are sent into the world to heal.

I think this is what Kingdom Advance has been all about.  It has been a strategy for helping churches find healing and become healers in a lost and wounded world.  The ditches of our world are strewn with people looking for someone to stop and bind up their wounds.  We are in the process of clarifying the new objectives and goals of KA 2.0, and it is our intent that together we become “healers” in the name of the only Savior and hope the world has as we more effectively become that Kingdom culture and community of believers we call Virginia Baptists.