Sabbath Devotional :: The Savior’s Healing Commands
Following the “Come, Follow Me” lessons from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many of us have recently read of several of Christ’s early miracles, including His calming of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. The last six weeks have been pretty stormy for me: the loss of all my remaining natural hearing, a foot surgery wound not healing properly and requiring intensive treatment have been my billows tossing high and sky o’ershadowed with blackness. In this moment of time, the story of the calming of the storm and of many other miracles have given me comfort and hope.
As Jesus wrought miracles of healing and safe harbor and then returned the healed ones to a world of pain and failings, He often left them with a command. Here are a few of those commands just from a few recent chapters: Arise and walk. Be whole. Be not afraid, only believe. Follow me. Be of good comfort. Go in peace. Be of good cheer. Peace, be still. How I need to internalize and follow these commands in my own life!
Sisters, I know of the prayer and thought that have gone into MWEG’s Six Principles of Peacemaking. It didn’t really surprise me, then, to see parallels between many of Christ’s healing commands and our Principles. Let me share a few connections I saw.
ARISE AND WALK: Principle of Peacemaking #1 — “Peacemaking is proactive and courageous” (LPB, 25). Christ calls us to be proactive and courageous. The man with palsy may not have been able to be proactive, but his close friends were, daring to lower him through a roof to be placed near the Savior. How am I being proactive in my peacemaking? Courageous? When I waver, as the LPB states, I can “acquire this necessary courage and confidence for this work by filling [my] hear[t] and min[d] with pure knowledge, charity, and virtue” (25). I have grown more courageous in my peacemaking because of the knowledge, charity, and virtue that you, my MWEG sisters, have shared in our associations. “MWEG aims to make peacemakers of us all — blessed by God, and filled with charity, confidence, and the courage of our convictions” (LPB, 29).
BE WHOLE: Principle of Peacemaking #2 — “Peacemaking seeks to unify instead of divide” (LPB, 30). I love the fact that the Man who slept through the fiercest of storms on the Galilee was also able to recognize the timid touch of a woman in need. As He healed her issue of blood, He commanded her to be whole. Principle of Peacemaking #2 focuses on external unity, though I would venture that this “kindness, empathy, and pure love [that] can adequately enlarge our souls, strip us of hypocrisy, and help us become reconciled to Jesus Christ and one another” (LPB, 30) comes best when we are whole internally. That wholeness comes when we heed His commands: Be not afraid, only believe. Follow me.
BE OF GOOD COMFORT: Principle of Peacemaking #4 –- “Peacemaking views human suffering as sacred” (LPB, 42). This command to be of good comfort implies the existence of the opposite: discomfort, suffering, grief, anguish. Suffering is universal and a price of mortality. But when we are baptized, enter into the fold of God, and are called His people, we promise to “bear one another’s burdens that they may be light . . ., to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:8-9). In my recent challenges, I have had my burdens lifted (meals cooked, rides arranged). And I’ve felt especially blessed by those who have mourned in solidarity with me. Christ’s suffering — the reason we ultimately will find comfort and peace — “is sacred whether people accept it or not. However, not all other suffering is sacred on its own, but it is out bearing, mourning, and light-shining that make it so” (LPB, 46).
GO IN PEACE: Principle of Peacemaking #5 — “Peacemaking chooses love instead of hate” (LPB, 47). Christ urges the healed to move forward in peace and in love. This is our mandate in MWEG as well. “We believe that love is the most powerful force in the universe and that any good relations can be maintained only through persuasion, patience, gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned, and that through this love, the hearts of all people might be knit together” (LPB, 47). Sadly, events like the Christchurch terrorist attacks show the horrors of choosing hate over love, of going in fear instead of in peace.
PEACE, BE STILL: Principle of Peacemaking #6 — “Peacemaking believes that ultimate peace is not only possible, but sure” (LPB, 51). We come back to the storm on the Galilee. Christ commands the turbulent sea: “Peace, be still.” Those words must have also been for His terrified disciples, and they are for each one of us. “Peace, be still. Peace, be still.” Ultimate peace is sure through and in the Savior.
I’m so grateful for the close overlap between Christ’s healing commands and the principles that MWEG stands upon. As we practice peacemaking we will both find *and* share the Savior’s healing and the Savior’s peace.
Lisa Rampton Halverson is advocacy director of research at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
