Jeremiah 8: 18-22-9:1; I Timothy 2: 1-3

Between despair and hope

Dear friends,

(wikipedia tells us that) The “balm in Gilead” is a reference from the Old Testament, but the lyrics of this spiritual refer to the New Testament concept of salvationthrough Jesus Christ in the hymn we sing today. The Balm of Gilead is traditionally interpreted as a spiritual medicine that is able to heal Israel (and sinners in general). In the Old Testament, the balm of Gilead is taken most directly from Jeremiah chapter 8 v. 22: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wounds of my [God’s] people?” (Another allusion can also be found in Jeremiah chapter 46, v. 2 and 11: “This is the message (of the Lord) against the army of a Pharaoh … Go up to Gilead and get balm, O Virgin Daughter of Egypt, but you multiply remedies in vain; here is no healing for you.” Someone attached to one of John Newton‘s Olney hymns of 1779 this refrain: There is balm in Gilead, To make the wounded whole ; There’s power enough in heaven, To cure a sin-sick soul. In 1845 Edgar Allan Poe mentions it in one of the last stanzas of his poem The Raven: “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil! —Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted —On this home by Horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore —”Is there – is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!”Quoth the Raven “Nevermore”. The poet is in deep despair. The hymn we sing today is an Aficran American spiritual and goes like follows: “there is a balm in Gilead To make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead To heal the sin-sick soul. Some times I feel discouraged, And think my work’s in vain, But then the Holy Spirit Revives my soul again. If you cannot sing like angels, If you can’t preach like Paul, You can tell the love of Jesus, And say He died for all. “

Dear friends, it is kind of hard to put our finger on this “Balm in Gilead” thing.  Yes we know the balm is a resin from a tree that had medicinal powers, but where is Gilead really?  If you look for it on google earth it takes you to a town by that name in the North east of the US.  The idea we get is that the text is lamenting that the cure for our ills we could always count on is no longer there.  It’s like saying: is there no oil in Olay?  Is there olive oil in Tuscany?  Is there no sake in Japan?  Is  there no acupuncturist in China, are there antibiotics in the hospital, is there ibuprofen in the cabinet, is there no aged cheese in Holland, is there no oil in Saudi Arabia, is there no rum in Jamaica? You get my drift, but in this case it is about a cure only.   What we count on seems to work no longer.  We talked about Janice Orlowsky, that trauma physician from Washington D.C. who treated the wounded after last week’s shooting. She is lamenting that the sanity has gone out of our country when it comes to violence.  Easy access to guns, isolation and mental illness combine to create horrible scene of destruction, despair and grief.  We feel helpless, because all action becomes politicized.  Then there is Syria. The wife of Bashar Assad is called the Rose of the Desert.  How come she does not speak out?  Has she become the cactus of the desert.  Is there no rose any longer in Syria?  Why has her husband become a ruthless, heartless killer like his father before him? There are some countries where things never seem to get better or even get worse.  Other than Syria, think of Egypt.   Is there no balm? In other words: can no one stop this pain? This is what Pastor Rick Warren and his wife must have thought.   After so many years of widely successful ministry, where was the balm?  So it is a lament of the absence of something we count on: sanity, justice, solace. There seems to be no balm of Gilead.  The African American spiritual seems to suggest that Jesus is the balm, but we can’t say that’s what is really meant.  But I Timothy seems to give us an insight.  He asks for prayers for mighty people. If even kings and queens need prayer, then all will need it. This is not just prayer as asking for things, but it is a crucial refocusing.  All need the knowledge of truth, the truth that Christ has come for all.  This is the antidote for despair. God’s love reaches us as we cry for the medicine we have become to depend on.  Just as we are helpless, we remember God’s grace, the grace that even the mighty need.  Here comes the aha moment, the realization that God’s love is actually the balm,  God’s love is the medicine.  And yes, that medicine is to be found in Gilead and everywhere else.  Thanks be to God!