In a cold winter the warmth of the sun is a very consoling experience. The Scripture says that the Sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.
We look for healing and strength. Healing includes cleansing, medication, bandaging, and resting.
We too need a process of healing, and Jesus assures: "I will come myself and cure him."
He came to us to console, strengthen and give us rest.
Re-visioning and re-forming a Bethlehem in our societies, is to experience the life that he enabled us to live. So if he came as someone external to us, now he longs to grow as someone among us who make up and completes his body.
Christ would be proud of his body that acknowledges if there are injuries. But that which rejects a need for healing adds pain for Christ. At times it could be a defective member, but the worst damage is done when the body says: "This is how it has to be." It would be like one who suffers toothache, hides it and says that it is perfect; or like one who is reluctant to change his cloths according to the changing climate as one travels. True that the body suffers.
Just like the feeble child in Bethlehem is cared by many in Bethlehem, we also may need many for our own healing. Let us not forget that an Israelite was brought to healing by a Samaritan.
Today's Samaritans, - atheists, scientists, other religions... - do take us to the inn of healing. We regain our strength and begin to feel the wholeness. There if we can see our faces, we could see the glory of reliving.
The glory of the Lord
will be a canopy and a tent
to give shade by day from the heat,
refuge and shelter from the storm and the rain.
