THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD JESUS BEGINS with instances of physical healing. The Gospels present this as fulfilling a well-attested messianic prophecy. In Luke 4:16 and following we read how Jesus read such a prophecy from Isaiah in the synagogue service at Nazareth. He then sat down, we are told, and said “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).
Later, when John the Baptist sent people to ask Jesus if He was the Messiah, the Lord told them to inform John of what they had seen: the healings which were an expected sign of the messianic age (see Matthew 7:19-23). He was indicating that these miracles illustrated that He was in fact the Messiah.
The physical healings foretold by the prophets would be accomplished by Christ, but they would also be exceeded by Him in ways the prophets could not imagine. The healings performed by Christ on the bodies of the blind, the lame, and the deaf were temporal, destined to disappear with those same bodies in death. But Christ’s healings, besides pointing back to the prophets, also pointed ahead. He who was the physician of bodies would also heal the souls of those who believed in Him: healings that would last unto eternity.
The New Testament portrays baptism as the Church’s “healing moment” for believers in Christ. In the first years of the Church, and for several centuries afterwards, baptism was chiefly administered to adults who were ready to commit their lives to Christ. Their baptism by immersion was a sign of union with the death of Christ, His defeat of sin and death; their rising from the water a sign of their union with Him in His resurrection unto eternal life. In their baptism they experienced Christ raising them from the dead. St Paul tells his Gentile converts at Colossae: “…you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Colossians 2:13).
Christ Heals Today
The consequence of being healed of sin and death, Paul goes on to say, is that you live like someone dead to the world and to sin. Baptism brings about the death of the “old man,” who is confined, as it were, to the world. The “new man,” united to Christ in baptism is given the opportunity to transcend the confines of the world and to live in Christ, both now and in eternity. We are healed at baptism when our life as an “old man” ends; we are resurrected as a “new man,” alive with Christ in us.
We have been changed through baptism in our spirit, the deepest part of our being. Over the years our inheritance as children of the earth, our environment and the direct actions of others have caused our spirit to be so covered over that we are out of touch with the new man in us. It is our lifelong task to “be what we have become,” in the words of St Gregory of Sinai: people who live from our renewed spirit instead of from the spirit of the world.
This refocusing of our lives on being a “new man,” alive in Christ is the early Church’s understanding of repentance. It is the continual striving to center our lives on the unseen reality of Christ in us rather than on the visible but transitory and therefore unreal attractions of this world. Doing this we are renewed in the image of Christ, whom we have put on and who is Himself the image of the unseen Father.
St Paul speaks frequently of the consequences of being a new man in Christ: we must strive to live like one. Put to death, he writes, “whatever in you is earthly” (Colossians 3:5): both actions (fornication, anger, blasphemy, etc.) and inner passions (such as evil desire and covetousness). Since we have put off the old man and put on the new in baptism, our daily life is to reflect in practice what we already are in spirit. We have been healed of sin and death: we must live in the light of that healing.
A person who is healed from sin and death has died to the world. In this the Christian is “hidden with Christ in God” (v. 3). While this language was later adopted by monastics to describe their particular commitment to living for Christ, it was first applied to all the baptized. In the New Testament baptism, not monastic profession, is the believer’s death and resurrection in Christ. It is a believer’s re-creation “according to the image of Him who created him” (v. 10): the One who lives and will come again in glory (v. 4).
The Walls of Separation
Elsewhere we are told that one example of the healing brought about by Christ’s death and resurrection is that the dividing wall of separation, which had set the Jews as God’s People apart from the Gentiles (see [reference-pericope]Ephesians 2:13-14[/reference-pericope]), has been demolished. Now all who are united to Christ through baptism are one in and with Him, whatever their background. And so the great sign put forth here of living the new life in Christ is the way we accept everyone on the basis of their baptism, not because they are of this nationality or social status, but because “Christ is all in all” (v. 11)
Christians have become increasingly aware of the walls separating peoples in the name of God. The walls constructed between Catholics of various Churches or ethnic origins have largely been dismantled. In the early twentieth century Christians began looking at other Christians, not as enemies to be defeated but as brethren to be embraced and the ecumenical movement was born. Some of these contacts – such as between Catholics, both Eastern and Oriental Orthodox or the Church of the East – have born fruit. Dialogues with Protestants, which at first seemed more productive, have been largely derailed over issues of theological and moral relativism. And while there are still Christians who avoid any contacts with members of other Churches or communities, others have come to value what possibilities do exist for common witness, especially in secular or anti-Christian environments.
While not based on any common faith in Christ, dialogues have developed with non-Christians as well. Encounters between Christians and Jews have been more cautious and easily stalled over questions of anti-Semitism and support for Israel. Interaction between Christians and Muslims has been overshadowed to a great degree by the anti-Christian activities of certain Islamic fundamentalists who see Western political intervention in the affairs of their countries as signs of Christian imperialism. Yet even here, people of good will can chip away at some walls of separation. In the wake of the New Year’s Day bombing at a Coptic Orthodox church in Alexandria, prominent Muslims, including arts and entertainment figures and the two sons of President Husni Mubarak, attended Coptic Christmas services. Millions of Egyptians changed their Facebook profile pictures to the image of a cross within a crescent, symbolizing “One Egypt for All”. Around the city, banners went up calling for unity, depicting mosques and churches, crosses and crescents, together as one.
Through repentance, then, we continue to be healed today. When we put to death the old man in us we come to cherish the new life we have been given and to see in others that, known or unknown to them Christ is in them as their Source and final end.