Sustained in Sickness

​Midweek 2 – 2024                                                                           LSB #’s 435, 421, 430:1-2, 433
Text – Psalm 41:3
 
The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness You restore him to full health. 
 
SUSTAINED IN SICKNESS
 
 
King David wrote in the opening words of Psalm 41, “Blessed is the one who considers the poor!  In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him; the LORD protects him & keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land; You do not give him up to the will of his enemies.” 
Those words marked the Ash Wednesday sermon, in which two things were emphasized: First,   all of  God’s Psalms – including Psalm 41 – speak about our Lord & His work of our salvation.  (Luke 24:44)   That is why God included the Psalms in His Scriptures: they “bear witness about Me,” said Jesus.  (John 5:39) 
2nd, because the Psalms are about Jesus, they are also about you.  You are the baptized of Christ,  & through baptism you entered into Christ’s holy body (Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 1:30) just as surely as He entered yours (John 14:20; Galatians 2:20).  You & your Messiah are now joined together by God: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:6) 
Tonight, as we move forward in Psalm 41,  I’d like you to bear that very thing in mind: that the Psalms speak about you because  they speak 1st about Jesus.  Your baptismal connection to Him can help with your understanding of these words from Psalm 41: “The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness You restore him to full health.” 
1.  First & foremost, Jesus is the one whom God the Father sustained on a sickbed.  To be sure, the Gospel writers never recorded anything about Jesus suffering cancer, feeling the effects of lung disease, catching a cold, or even striking His “foot against a stone.”  (Matthew 4:6)  As far as the Gospels are concerned, our Lord was a picture of health. 
Right up to the moment of His arrest, He was always healing & never needing to be
healed.  The human body of Jesus was unblemished (1 Peter 1:19) & uncorrupted by disease because Jesus had no sin of His own.  (Hebrews 4:15)   Disease came into the world as a result of sin, & Jesus is personally  sinless.  Nonetheless, just because Jesus had no sin of His own, we should NOT therefore think that He carried no sin at all in His body. 
 Jesus is the Lamb of God, who took upon Himself “the sin of the world.”  (John 1:29)   Sinless Jesus  was made to be the sinner for our sake.  God the Father laid onto His perfect Son every corrupt thing about us.  (Isaiah 53:6)  
Jesus held Himself personally responsible for our guilt; He made Himself to be the guilty one so that we could be “blameless & innocent, children of God without blemish.”  (Philippians 2:15)  That’s why the Scriptures say God “made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (2 Corinthians 5:21) 
Because Jesus took upon Himself all of our sin, He also took upon Himself all the bodily effects of our sin, including our diseases & ailments.  You might have a bad hip; you can find comfort in knowing that Jesus bore pain & hobbled for you in His Passion.  
You might have bad lungs;  knowing that Jesus suffocated on the cross can help you realize that you are not alone in your breathing problems.   Isaiah declared,  & Peter echoed,  a promise from God concerning Jesus that shall yet be fulfilled in our bodies: “with His wounds we are healed.”  (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24)   
David prayed in another place – & why we also can pray, even in pain – “Bless the Lord, O my soul, & forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit.”  (Psalm 103:2–4)    The words of the sermon text describe God the heavenly Father’s personal attentiveness toward Jesus:
“The Lord sustains him on His sickbed; in his illness You restore him to full health.”
A German artist named Matthias Grünewald famously painted a picture of our Lord’s crucified body  not merely pierced with nails & the spear   but also pockmarked & discolored with a disease called the plague.  Grünewald wanted us to think of our Lord’s cross as a sickbed, where Jesus suffered for us & for our salvation,  bearing both our sin  & its bodily consequences. 
David’s word, “sustains,” could also be translated as “upholds.”  God said through Isaiah, “Behold My Servant, whom I uphold, My chosen, in whom My soul delights.”  (Isaiah 42:1)  
Artists have depicted God the Father  present at the crucifixion of our Lord.   In those paintings, the heavenly Father would sometimes be positioned above & behind the cross,  arms outstretched toward Jesus, holding His Son’s sacrificial body in place against the beam.  Thus, God the Father upheld & sustained the incarnate Son “on His sickbed,” as it were. 
David wrote: “In his illness You restore him to full health.”  Stated another way, God “raised Him from the dead & gave Him glory, so that your faith & hope are in God.”  (1 Peter 1:21)   In the resurrection of our Lord, God the Father restored full health to His Son, setting Him free from the weight of our sin & the burden of our disease.  
The resurrection of our Lord’s flesh  promises resurrection also to ours because He made Himself one with us.  That’s why Job confidently prayed, “…after my skin has been thus destroyed,  yet in my flesh I shall see God,  whom I shall see for myself,  & my eyes shall behold…”  (Job 19:26–27) 
2.  Because Psalm 41 is about Jesus,  it is also about YOU, the baptized of Christ.  David said, for the purpose of your abiding faith & eternal hope, “The LORD sustains him or her” – that is, the Lord sustains each of His chosen ones – “on each person’s sickbed;  in each Christian’s illness,  You,  O Lord  restore him or her to full health” (v. 3, paraphrase). 
David’s “sustain,” or “uphold,” is a beautiful word!  Jesus of Nazareth is the hand &
Word of the Lord of hosts.  “The right hand of the Lord does valiantly, the right hand of the Lord exalts!”  (Psalm 118:15–16)  “Your right hand upholds me.”  (Psalm 63:8)   Your Christ knows “how to sustain with a word  him who is weary.”  (Isaiah 50:4) 
Are you, at this moment, a picture of health?  If you are,  you did NOT  reach that temporary state through your own effort or strength.  “The God of Israel – He is the one who gives power & strength to His people.”  (Psalm 68:35) 
Is anyone among you sick?  You did NOT  get that way  because of an accidental oversight in the heavenly realm or because the Lord your God has forgotten you.  If you are sick, it has been allowed by the attentive grace & overflowing mercy of God, who “gives power to the faint” & “increases strength.”  (Isaiah 40:29)   
Even as we suffer in our bodies & struggle in our minds, Jesus is “sweetness to the soul & health to the body.”  (Proverbs 16:24) 
Has your dear Christian loved one died in the faith & departed this life?   His illness was not his death.  Her disease did not  claim her life.  “The child is not dead,” said the Lord, “but sleeping.”  (Mark 5:39)   Why? Because David’s words in Psalm 41 are faithful & true:
“The Lord sustains you on your sickbed;  in your illness He restores you to full health.”  (Isaiah 41:3 paraphrased)  Amen. 
 
 
Jesus, grant that balm & healing  in Your holy wound I find,  every hour that I am feeling  pains of body & of mind.   Should some evil thought within  tempt my treacherous heart to sin,  show the peril,  & from sinning   keep me from its first beginning.       Every wound that pains or grieves me   by Your wounds, Lord, is made whole;  when I’m faint,  Your cross revives me,  granting new life to my soul.    Yes, Your comfort renders sweet  every bitter cup I meet;  for Your all-atoning passion  has procured my soul’s salvation.     O my God, my rock & tower,  grant that in Your death I trust,  knowing death has lost its power  since You crushed it in the dust.  Savior, let Your agony  ever help & comfort me;  when I die be my protection,  light & life & resurrection.  Amen.  LSB 421:1, 4-5.