Weekly Reflection – Jabber Jabber

The text message pinged in this week inviting me for my flu jab.  A few quick clicks and I had booked my flu-and-Covid-booster appointment.  Such a gift to have vaccines, which help mitigate some of the risks of illness and disease.  How blessed we are to have this gift, which sadly so many in our world don’t have; do take up the offer if you get it, and contact your g.p. if you think you should but haven’t.

In some versions of our bibles, you’ll find a set of books between Malachi (the last book in the Old Testament) and Matthew (the first book in the New).  These are called the Apocrypha or the Deuterocanonical books.  There are not part of the Bible as such, but are a sort of ‘background reading’ to it, particularly telling us about Jewish religion and history between the end of the Old Testament story (around two hundred years before Christ) and the beginning of the New (around 30AD).  This means they are particularly useful for helping us understand the words and concepts and events that shaped Jesus, as a first-century Jewish person.

One of those books, called Ecclesiasticus or the Wisdom of Ben-Sirach, is a book of proverbs, pithy ethical teachings, which were written in this form about 150 years before Christ.  The author writes, Honour physicians … for their gift of healing comes from the Most High (38.1-2).  How blessed we are to have modern medicine, and the skill and compassion of doctors, nurses, carers, scientists, pharmacists, researchers, inventors, who discover and deliver treatments, vaccines, medicines, tests, and so on.  So on Thursday I’ll potter over to Boots; get jabbed in each arm; and I’ll try and remember to thank God for those whose care  and skill brings us physical healing, a gift from the Lord – just as much as he gives us the gift of spiritual healing through the life and teaching of Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

With prayers and best wishes,
Philip