Healed People Heal People 2: Healing and Broken Hearts

"They decide what job you'll have, then whatever limbs you don't need for that job, they remove.  For example; if you are told to be a weaver and make clothing and blankets and so forth they'll cut off your feet, because you don't need them to do the job.  They also brand or tattoo the name of your job on your forehead, and it's there forever.  If your job is to be a farmer it will literally say "farmer" across your forehead in Assyrian.  It serves dual purposes of being dehumanizing and also assuring the Assyrians that their slaves won't be in any position to mount an effective revolt."

This is how one historian describes the way the Assyrian people handled their slaves.  The Assyrians learned a lot when they studied the slavery revolt in Egypt and other nations and created methods to ensure the same didn't happen to them.  This is what's happening to Israel in Ezekiel 18.  They're living under Assyrian captivity and things aren't good.

There was collective wisdom at the time among the Hebrews that brought about the phrase found in verse 2 "the parents eat the sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge."

What does that phrase mean, and why is God so bent on the people not saying it anymore?

The phrase its self is nothing too complicated.  Essentially, the current Jews in captivity believe they are there because their parents and grandparents sinned and left God.  They believe that it's their lot in life to reap the punishment for this betrayal.  They believe they are taking the pain and suffering from God himself, and that God is still angry at their parents and grandparents, and that his wrath now falls on them.  They believe there's nothing they can do about this.  So they sit around each other night after night in a sort of Old Testament version of learned helplessness and say the phrase to each other.

"Our parents ate the sour grapes, yet our teeth are set on edge."

Break it down and you get something more basic.

"We are taking the punishment intended for our ancestors."

Break it down to its most basic level and you get two simple words.

Not fair.

The same sentiment is seen again in Lamentations 5, to paraphrase "our parents sinned and we're paying for it".

This, and this alone, is why my life is the way it is.

I'm in this position because of the actions of others.  I'm helpless.

This sentiment stands like a brick wall in between people and their healing.

God, through Ezekiel, spends the rest of the chapter building the case that each person stands on their own before God and that no sin of anyone is held over their children or anyone else.

Incidentally, the alternating "good men" and "bad men" God uses in his metaphor mirrors the Kings of Israel and which ones were "good" or "evil."

Israel heard God combating the groupthink that had infiltrated their hearts and minds.

At the end of the passage God tells them he will judge them each on their own.  Then he says that they can get a "new heart."

A new heart?

Have you ever heard someone go through a traumatic experience and then say something like, "I'm over it, but I'll have some scars from this".

Or this, "I'll carry these wounds forever".

Have you ever had your heart broken?

When it comes to healing a broken heart, I usually for some reason imagine a literal heart, made out of glass or something.  All of a sudden a crack appears in it, and then someone comes along and tapes the crack up.  If that heart gets broken again, a new crack, then someone else comes over and wraps it in gauze.  Then, if the heart's broken a third time, maybe a hole struck into it, another person comes and patches that up.

What you're left with doesn't really look like a "healed" heart does it?  It looks like a patched up fraction of its former self.  A heart that has been left with scars.

The healing God offers, a new heart, is the only way to end up with a new complete fully healed heart.  When you say, "I'll carry scars from this" God says "why?"

When your heart gets a crack, rather than coming in a taping it up, God brings in a brand new one, clean and perfect and exactly what it looked like before it was broken.

Back to Israel.  The reason God is so insistent that they quit using this saying is because full healing that God offers cannot come when you or I wear the victim hat.

His complete healing is the only perfect healing.  He can't offer that to us when we won't let him.

Israel, or anyone else with a broken heart, has got to quit it with the sour grapes.

Healed People Heal People

In 1975 a ground shaking book was published by the title "The Relaxation Response".  Written by Harvard Dr. Herbert Benson, the book had an interesting thesis.

Essentially, it said, if there is a powerful mechanism for the body to prepare for action (the flight or fight response) then there must be an equal and opposite reaction for calming the body down (the relaxation response).

The book proposes a modern form of something called Transcendental Meditation and presents it in a way that's less alien to people of western culture.  Dr Benson shows through scientific theory that this ancient technique can be used extremely effectively in our stress filled modern world.  He even showed that this form of relaxation can illicit results similar to blood pressure medication, in fact as a natural form of relaxation it's actually better for many people than taking medication.

A 1986 survey showed that this book was the number one self-help book given by clinical-psychologists to their clients.

Dr Benson didn't present any new information to be sure, he said, "We claim no innovation but simply a scientific validation of age-old wisdom."

His genius was seeing a natural human reaction and then realizing it must have an equally powerful opposite, and striving to find exactly what that was and what it would look like.

The action response, known as "fight or flight" had been around for years.  Actually it was discovered and named in the 1920's (also at Harvard).

So then, for over fifty years, no one thought to see if the fight or flight reaction could be countered or combated in any way.  They just thought they had to deal with it.

There's a popular phrase thrown around in pop-psychology and Oprah book clubs that goes like this.

Hurt people hurt people.

The phrase is even the title of a book, and it's easy to see why.  Emotionally damaged people tend to spread their hurt to other people.  Understanding this fact is a huge step toward understanding why a hurting person is doing and saying the things they are.  These four words tell us a lot about the human condition don't they?

The question is, does this phrase have an equal and opposite reaction, ie. healed people heal people?

For that answer, turn to Mary Magdalene.

Mary Magdalene is a fascinating character, her name is mentioned more than any other female in the New Testament except Jesus' mother.  She is mentioned in every gospel and in the book of Acts.  Eight times her name appears in a list of other people, other than the scene at the foot of the cross her name always leads the list.

The beginning of her story though, is how she was healed.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+8&version=NKJV

Notice after she was healed, in the very next verse, she's contributing to the ministry of Jesus.

She was also one of the few people who didn't flee during the crucifiction, and the first to see Jesus after he rose.  Mary was so changed by her healing she couldn't help but become part of the movement that brought that healing to others.

Her life illustrates a powerful point.

Just as a person hurting others is a symbol of their own internal pain, someone actively healing others emotional wounds is a sign that they are moving a long way toward their own healing.

An opposite reaction that serves to counter the one we all know.

If this post makes you wonder if you're a "healed" person or a "hurt" person, take a few points to heart.

1.  You have, or most certainly will, occupy both categories.

2.  Just as a hurt person can't help but hurt others, a healed person can't help but heal others.

3.  The healing reaction, though seeming similar, is in fact much more powerful than the hurting reaction.  Healing someone has a huge healing effect on yourself.

Healing was always meant to be more powerful and more far reaching than hurting.  Just as light drives dark away, healing scatters hurting to the wind.

Are you healed?  Then go heal.