"A Balm in Gilead"

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored? Oh that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! (Jeremiah 8:22-9:1 NASB).

Jeremiah is known as the “weeping prophet” in part from our text today. Israel was in shambles. It has been devastated by the marauding armies of Assyria and Babylonia. The Northern Kingdom had already fallen before his call to preach, but the Southern Kingdom had been saved from destruction with a miracle of God. The people, however, had not turned away from their wickedness to God. There was no “healing” for their land. There was no “balm in Gilead” to be found. It was a dark time for Judah.

I think we sometimes feel like Jeremiah. We weep and wonder if we have been forgotten. We question, like the prophet, “where is the balm of Gilead?” Like Jeremiah we must ultimately come to the place where we learn to look forward rather than backward. There is a wonderful old spiritual that expresses it so well:

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.

As we seek a word of healing, we ought to be led to Jesus, who is the great physician and the healer of our lives. If we read the gospels, we know that healing stood at the center of his ministry. Wherever he went, he reached out and he touched people’s lives. He restored hope to those who lived without hope. He restored broken bodies and broken lives. We see this promise of healing in his death and resurrection. Hanging on the cross as he did that day, Jesus tasted the bitterness, the pain, and the despair of humanity. He bore on his body the blows of human anger and hatred, and he offered forgiveness in return. When we hear the cry “Is there no balm in Gilead?” the answer that we ought to hear is that it’s Jesus who brings God’s healing presence to us. That’s where we find our hope and healing!