Saturday, December 6, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Over and under and through
Just after her surgery yesterday, my friend Sheryl texted me, “I’m in my room. Thanks for praying!” My News Gazette buddy’s granddaughter had a “remarkable day” in recovery two weeks after a devastating car crash. She’ll be in rehab for weeks but the doctors also say she might get home for Christmas.
Driving from Urbana to Austin several times a year requires close attention on my part for several hours a day as I pass through Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas, and finally into Texas. On Thursday as I got to our apartment an hour before sunset, sirens wailed while firetrucks, ambulances and police cars flashed red lights on the highway I had just been cruising along a few minutes before.
Our son spent a couple of hours with Margaret the night before I left. “I cherish this time,” he said. “I think about you more as you get older and I realize as I say goodbye, one of these days I won’t be seeing you again.”
Jesus was moved with pity at the sight of the crowds,
 because they were troubled and abandoned,
 like sheep without a shepherd …
He summoned his Twelve disciples
and gave them authority over unclean spirits
to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness …
he told them, “Freely you have received; freely give.”
Jesus’ healing is a renewable resource. There is always more where that came from. He never runs out. He fills his disciples with the stuff of healing, and they are sent out to do more of what he’s been doing.
Jesus only does what his Father is doing. Jesus’ Father must also be moved with pity. His Father must want everyone Jesus touches to be healed. His Father loves Jesus, and through him He touches thousands of people with that love. Just as he talked to Adam and Eve in the garden before their fall, his Father talks through Jesus to his children now. And so he becomes our Father too.
What does he say? Freely you have received. Freely give. Never think about what you don’t have; dwell with constant gratitude on what you do have. And give it away, knowing you will always receive more. What goes around, comes around. In this atmosphere, healing is much deeper than merely physical change. Physical changes are symptoms of a freely loved, accepted soul, craving nothing any longer except the sweet touch of its Source, of God, its All. Any kind of physical death is overwhelmed by confidence in Life, which never ends, and even what Satan supposes to be his victory is hollow and false. Death has no dominion.
Jesus knew that everyone he touched would eventually die. Aging, accidents, illness would take their toll. Jesus also knew that he was bringing each of those people what he often called “living water,” which triumphs over and under and through death. “Today you shall be with me in Paradise,” he told a crucified thief. When you look at death, look again and just a little past it, and be amazed at what you see.
He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
He tells the number of the stars;
he calls each by name.
Pain doesn’t go away, and death remains for each of us. But your touch changes everything, Jesus. You look me straight in the eye. Telling me, “I love you.”
(Isaiah 30, Psalm 147, Isaiah 33, Matthew 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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