Our local phonebooks list many specialty physicians. Each takes long extra training in the one branch of medicine for which he/she is uniquely qualified.
If Jesus had a place in our phonebook He would be listed as specializing in brokenheartedness. That is the one branch of heart-illness in which He is supremely qualified by experience. He is the only person in our 6000+ years who has experienced to the full the anguish of being totally "forsaken" by the Father (cf. Matt. 27:46; true! no one else has ever yet died the second death!). That death-pang of anguish on the cross was His extra training in His Physician-specialty!
"The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart" (Psalm 34:18). The problem is, they don't realize it; to them, He seems billions of miles away.
But there is only one spot where they can realize that nearness--on His cross with Him. Come, there.
"A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise," and "the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit" (51:17). The brokenness is in contrition, sorrow for sin, not fear for the punishment, but pain for having caused suffering to the Son of God. That repentance is precious gift from God!
Christ's expertise in being a Physician to the brokenhearted is told in Psalm 147:3: "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." It's not merely superficial comfort that He offers, to get you by with a band-aid for another dark and dreary day; He heals that brokenness. From the deep inside, He makes you smile again.
Jesus announced His Physician-specialty in the Sabbath worship service in His home town of Nazareth: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath appointed Me to preach the gospel [Good News] to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives [slaves], and recovering of sight to the blind [an Optician supreme], to set at liberty them that are bruised" (Luke 4:18).
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 30, 2007.Copyright © 2011 by Robert J. Wieland.
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