The wound is the cure

Tuesday, April 9

Readings: NM 21:4-9; JN 8:21-30

The reading from the book of Numbers is one of my favorites.  The Israelites are tired.  Yes, they were saved from slavery in Egypt, but now they’re wandering in the desert.  Their feet hurt.  They’re thirsty.  The food is stale and wretched. And so they start complaining.  God’s not pleased at this and sends snakes their way to bite them.  Many died from this and so they repent.  God tells Moses to make a serpent and mount it on a pole and all who look at it will be made well.  And so it happened.

While I think the vision of a petty God is a little far-fetched (I mean the God of the Universe can’t handle a little collective complaining!), what I love about this story is the profound connection between what wounds us and what heals us.  For me, there is some profound psychology behind this reading.

What I mean by this is we’re often so quick to try to get rid of our pain, our weak spots, our shortcomings.  We want to cover them up, hide them, pretend that they are not there.  But God says, “Lean in to the things that hurt, because that is where I can heal you.”  The very things we think we need to get rid of are what God wants to address in our lives.

I often think of the art of homeopathy.  While I only have basic knowledge of it, what I do know is that it is based on the principle of taking a small amount of what actually hurts you or would cause dis-ease and introduces it into the body so that the body can then work to heal it (the dis-ease).

We’re introduced today to a form of divine homeopathy where we are encouraged to address our spiritual dis-ease with the dis-ease itself.  Paying attention to our places of pain is, paradoxically, the first step of healing from it.  We’ll see this motif repeated very soon in the Lenten season when on Good Friday Jesus is “lifted up” in front of the people – just like Moses lifted the serpent.  And in the Christian understanding, gazing upon the crucified Christ is not meant to horrify us, but, instead, be the path to healing.  The cross represents all that is broken, unfinished, crushed, hurt and bruised in our lives.  And it is NOT the last word.

For today, just sit with a pain that you carry – especially one that you may have tried to avoid.  What happens if you sit with it even for a little while and see what it might have to offer you.