Read Acts 15:36-16:15.
100 years ago, deep in the jungles of Africa, there was a small clearing. In this clearing was a single village made up of a single tribe. The people lived off the jungle, eating its fruits and animals. They had some good times, when there was plenty of food and plenty of peace. They also had bad times when other tribes took their food and killed their men. But amid this struggle for life, another enemy rose up.
People began to get sick. It started with an itchy throat. Then, came a mild cough. It ended with deep, horrendous body shaking coughs that lasted through the night, with their bodies shaking wildly in fits of coughing until finally they moved no more. The whole village was kept awake at night to the sound of people literally coughing up their lungs. And as the people got sicker, they also got meaner and sadder. Fathers began to hit their children. Women began to lash out at people trying to help them. Throughout the night, between the coughing, were mournful wails or angry shouts at the dark sky.
The people began to call this sickness the dark-death. Soon, nearly everyone in the village had the dark-death, and it seemed to shut the light out of the people who caught the illness. The dark-death hung like a dark cloud over the village, shutting out the light from the sky. No one knew where this disease had come from or how it was spread. They only knew that it was destroying them, and they had no cure. Many began to lose hope. Some abandoned the village to take their chances in the jungle.
But one group, one small group, the prophets, called the people to hope. The prophets were the people’s connection with the gods and with their past. The prophets told and retold the community stories. They told legends of times long ago when a loving God made the world with his hands. They told stories of times of crisis when this loving God sent help to save the world or to save a village. The prophets lifted up hope. They said the old stories were true. They said that help would come, that the Helping God would come.
The people believed. The people believed the prophets’ stories, and they began to look for the Helping God. In the early morning, when someone was walking through the village, people would look out the doors of their huts to see if it might be the Helping God. When they walked the trails of the jungle, as they came to a new turn, they hoped they might see the Helping God walking toward them on his way to help their village. For a very long time, no one came. The people waited and watched and hoped, but no one came, and the dark-death continued.
Then, someone came. A black man came. He was dressed in their jungle clothes. His skin was like their skin. He spoke their tribal language. They had never seen him before, but he was clearly one of them. He had medicine. He had a cure for the dark-death. It was a clear liquid, clearer even than water, and he kept it in little bottles in a small kit.
He asked to see the sickest person in the village first. He took out a syringe with a long needle and injected some of the clear medicine into the man’s arm. Then, he went from sick person to sick person injecting them with the medicine. The medicine worked so fast that the people began to call it the God-Life. They believed that this man was injecting into the sick people the very life of God.
The people called him the Healer. Every time the Healer met with a sick person and injected the God-Life into her, he said these words: “You now have the God-Life in you. Regain your strength, for you are now a healer, too. Go and share the God-Life with others who have the dark-death. They are here in your village, here in your jungle, and far away in other lands. Wherever there is the dark-death, you must go with the God-Life.” Then, every time, he opened his back pack and gave the person a medical kit, so that they could also give the God-Life to others.
Many people in the village refused to accept the God-Life. It was new. It was different. They didn’t believe in the gods, so they didn’t believe in this cure.
But a good number of people did receive the God-Life. And life in the village was changed. The cloud brought by the dark-death began to lift. Everyone who had received the God-Life began to be healed in body and spirit. They regained their strength; they regained their joy; they regained their love. They repaired their relationships which had been broken by the dark-death. The whole village moving toward joyful, loving life! The God-Life was working!
Then, those who had received the God-Life got together for a meeting. They remembered the words the Healer had spoken to each of them: “You are now a healer, too. Go and share the God-Life with others who have the dark-death. Wherever there is the dark-death, you must go with the God-Life.” They had heard reports from nearby villages that the dark-death was also attacking them. They prayed to the Helping God to guide them. Then, a voice in their hearts seemed to guide them. The God-Life in them seemed to suggest a plan. They organized a team to keep giving the God-Life to people in their village, and they sent teams of healers to each of the nearby villages.
When these teams of healers arrived in the nearby villages, they found the dark cloud of sadness and fear that comes from the dark-death. They prayed to the Helping God to ask for help in reaching this new village. Then, they began talking to the villagers about the God-Life. They explained how their lives and their villages had been changed by the God-Life. Soon, some people in the new villages were ready to receive the God-Life and be rid of the dark-death.
Every time the healers met with a sick person to inject them with the God-Life, they repeated the words they had heard from the Healer: “You now have the God-Life in you. Regain your strength, for you are now a Healer, too. Go and share the God-Life with others who have the dark-death. They are here in your village, here in your jungle, and far away in other lands. Wherever there is the dark-death, you must go with the God-Life.” Then, every time, they opened their backpacks and gave the person a medical kit, so that they could also give the God-Life to others.
After spending time in each of the nearby villages, giving the God-Life to as many people as would receive it, the healers returned to their home village. They also brought representatives from each of the villages who had has also received the God-Life. There, in that central village, they had a little God-Life meeting. They were talking about what to do next, and they were divided.
Some remembered the Healer’s words, “Go and share the God-Life with others who have the dark-death. They are here in your village, here in your jungle, and far away in other lands. Wherever there is the dark-death, you must go with the God-Life.” They had heard of places far, far away which also suffered under the curse of the dark-death. They said, “We have gone to our village and to other places in our jungle. It is time to go to the far away lands, just as the Healer said.”
Other people wanted to focus their attention on giving the God-Life to their own villages: “There are so many people here who are still suffering with the dark-death. Why should we go on to others, when people need us here?”
Still others did not really want to be healers: “Isn’t it enough that we have the God-Life in us? Why do we have to go around telling everybody about it? If they want it, they can come to us.”
Again, they prayed to the Helping God. They asked for wisdom and for strength. They asked for unity and for direction. Again, an inner voice seemed to be their guide. It was as if the God-Life with which they had been injected was even now showing them the way.
Here was their plan. In every village where the God-Life had been given, the people being healed should meet together regularly. A lead-healer should encourage their healing progress and gather them together to continue sharing the God-Life with the people in that village. The lead-healer should always remind the people that they are healers, too. The lead-healer should always make sure each person who received the God-Life has a working medical kit and actually uses it as a healer. Each of these villages should also try to share the God-Life with other villages farther out, moving in ever-widening circles.
However, even this was not enough. Some people who had received the God-Life seemed called and gifted and even chosen by the Helping God for special missions. These healers were to go out in teams to the far corners of the earth to start new communities of people being healed by the God-Life. Each new community should be trained in the healing ways of the God-Life and equipped with medical kits. The plan was to start little centers spreading the healing power of the God-Life all around the world.
The meeting of the God-Life people ended with the entire community gathering together to pray for the healing teams being sent to far away lands. They all asked the Helping God to help them, to guide them, to keep them safe, and - most of all - to make them effective in sharing the God-Life.
The healing teams traveled far and wide, and they worked hard to share the God-Life wherever they went. But sometimes, it seemed as if their way was blocked. Sometimes, it seemed as if the Helping God did not want them to go to a certain place or to do a certain thing, at least not yet. Sometimes they had to change their plans.
Whenever the healing teams didn’t know what to do next, they got together and prayed to the Helping God. They talked together about the world around them, about what they remembered from the Healer, about their dreams, about their visions, about what the Helping God seemed to be saying now, or about where the God-Life seemed to be leading. And so through much prayer and talking, they decided together what the Helping God wanted them to do next to continue sharing the God-Life with others.
The great joy for these healing teams, and for all people who shared the God-Life, was in seeing the changes that the God-Life brought to individuals and to villages. The dark-death seemed to be everywhere, and everywhere people were dying slow, angry, sad, painful deaths – even if they didn’t yet realize they were dying. But when the healing teams came, some people began to have hope that their lives could be different. Some people received the God-Life. Their lives were beautifully changed. The dark death lost its grip on them. They began to trade sadness for joy, bitterness for hope, anger for love. The God-Life in them affected their families and their communities. Everywhere they went, the cloud of the dark death was lifted a little. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, people around them began to have hope that they, too, could be free from the dark-death, and they, too, received and began to share the God-Life.
Seeing all of this brought a deep and eternal joy to the healing teams. Their home villages were filled with the same joy and satisfaction when they realized that, through their own work and through the healing teams, they were indeed changing the world by sharing the God-Life.
However, over time, people began to see problems among the God-Life people. Some of them still didn’t want to share the God-Life. They just went back to their own homes and tried to live and make money with their new health from the God-Life. The results of this problem area were doubly poor. First, for the people who didn’t want to share the God-Life, the effects of the God-Life began to fade. Their joy faded; their light faded; their love faded; their health faded. Slowly, the dark-death began to regain its hold on them. Also, the people around them who were still stuck in the dark-death looked at the quiet, selfish, fading lives of these people who had once received the God-Life, and they began to disbelieve in the God-Life. They thought things like, “If the God-Life were so good, she would surely share it with me. If the God-Life were so good, his life would be different, but really it’s about the same as mine.” So the non-sharers not only lost the God-Life in themselves, but they also pushed others away from the God-Life.
Slowly, the God-Life people realized an important truth: The God-Life is the hope of the world, but it must be shared.
Questions for Reflection:
What is the dark death? How have you seen the dark death in others? How have you seen the dark death in you?
Who is the Healer? How did he come?
What is the God-Life? How have you seen the God-Life change others? Has the God-Life changed you? (How?)
What do you think of what the Healer said when he gave people the God-Life?
How does your life need to change to share the God-Life more?
How does our church need to change to share the God-Life more?
Are you going to make those changes?
People began to get sick. It started with an itchy throat. Then, came a mild cough. It ended with deep, horrendous body shaking coughs that lasted through the night, with their bodies shaking wildly in fits of coughing until finally they moved no more. The whole village was kept awake at night to the sound of people literally coughing up their lungs. And as the people got sicker, they also got meaner and sadder. Fathers began to hit their children. Women began to lash out at people trying to help them. Throughout the night, between the coughing, were mournful wails or angry shouts at the dark sky.
The people began to call this sickness the dark-death. Soon, nearly everyone in the village had the dark-death, and it seemed to shut the light out of the people who caught the illness. The dark-death hung like a dark cloud over the village, shutting out the light from the sky. No one knew where this disease had come from or how it was spread. They only knew that it was destroying them, and they had no cure. Many began to lose hope. Some abandoned the village to take their chances in the jungle.
But one group, one small group, the prophets, called the people to hope. The prophets were the people’s connection with the gods and with their past. The prophets told and retold the community stories. They told legends of times long ago when a loving God made the world with his hands. They told stories of times of crisis when this loving God sent help to save the world or to save a village. The prophets lifted up hope. They said the old stories were true. They said that help would come, that the Helping God would come.
The people believed. The people believed the prophets’ stories, and they began to look for the Helping God. In the early morning, when someone was walking through the village, people would look out the doors of their huts to see if it might be the Helping God. When they walked the trails of the jungle, as they came to a new turn, they hoped they might see the Helping God walking toward them on his way to help their village. For a very long time, no one came. The people waited and watched and hoped, but no one came, and the dark-death continued.
Then, someone came. A black man came. He was dressed in their jungle clothes. His skin was like their skin. He spoke their tribal language. They had never seen him before, but he was clearly one of them. He had medicine. He had a cure for the dark-death. It was a clear liquid, clearer even than water, and he kept it in little bottles in a small kit.
He asked to see the sickest person in the village first. He took out a syringe with a long needle and injected some of the clear medicine into the man’s arm. Then, he went from sick person to sick person injecting them with the medicine. The medicine worked so fast that the people began to call it the God-Life. They believed that this man was injecting into the sick people the very life of God.
The people called him the Healer. Every time the Healer met with a sick person and injected the God-Life into her, he said these words: “You now have the God-Life in you. Regain your strength, for you are now a healer, too. Go and share the God-Life with others who have the dark-death. They are here in your village, here in your jungle, and far away in other lands. Wherever there is the dark-death, you must go with the God-Life.” Then, every time, he opened his back pack and gave the person a medical kit, so that they could also give the God-Life to others.
Many people in the village refused to accept the God-Life. It was new. It was different. They didn’t believe in the gods, so they didn’t believe in this cure.
But a good number of people did receive the God-Life. And life in the village was changed. The cloud brought by the dark-death began to lift. Everyone who had received the God-Life began to be healed in body and spirit. They regained their strength; they regained their joy; they regained their love. They repaired their relationships which had been broken by the dark-death. The whole village moving toward joyful, loving life! The God-Life was working!
Then, those who had received the God-Life got together for a meeting. They remembered the words the Healer had spoken to each of them: “You are now a healer, too. Go and share the God-Life with others who have the dark-death. Wherever there is the dark-death, you must go with the God-Life.” They had heard reports from nearby villages that the dark-death was also attacking them. They prayed to the Helping God to guide them. Then, a voice in their hearts seemed to guide them. The God-Life in them seemed to suggest a plan. They organized a team to keep giving the God-Life to people in their village, and they sent teams of healers to each of the nearby villages.
When these teams of healers arrived in the nearby villages, they found the dark cloud of sadness and fear that comes from the dark-death. They prayed to the Helping God to ask for help in reaching this new village. Then, they began talking to the villagers about the God-Life. They explained how their lives and their villages had been changed by the God-Life. Soon, some people in the new villages were ready to receive the God-Life and be rid of the dark-death.
Every time the healers met with a sick person to inject them with the God-Life, they repeated the words they had heard from the Healer: “You now have the God-Life in you. Regain your strength, for you are now a Healer, too. Go and share the God-Life with others who have the dark-death. They are here in your village, here in your jungle, and far away in other lands. Wherever there is the dark-death, you must go with the God-Life.” Then, every time, they opened their backpacks and gave the person a medical kit, so that they could also give the God-Life to others.
After spending time in each of the nearby villages, giving the God-Life to as many people as would receive it, the healers returned to their home village. They also brought representatives from each of the villages who had has also received the God-Life. There, in that central village, they had a little God-Life meeting. They were talking about what to do next, and they were divided.
Some remembered the Healer’s words, “Go and share the God-Life with others who have the dark-death. They are here in your village, here in your jungle, and far away in other lands. Wherever there is the dark-death, you must go with the God-Life.” They had heard of places far, far away which also suffered under the curse of the dark-death. They said, “We have gone to our village and to other places in our jungle. It is time to go to the far away lands, just as the Healer said.”
Other people wanted to focus their attention on giving the God-Life to their own villages: “There are so many people here who are still suffering with the dark-death. Why should we go on to others, when people need us here?”
Still others did not really want to be healers: “Isn’t it enough that we have the God-Life in us? Why do we have to go around telling everybody about it? If they want it, they can come to us.”
Again, they prayed to the Helping God. They asked for wisdom and for strength. They asked for unity and for direction. Again, an inner voice seemed to be their guide. It was as if the God-Life with which they had been injected was even now showing them the way.
Here was their plan. In every village where the God-Life had been given, the people being healed should meet together regularly. A lead-healer should encourage their healing progress and gather them together to continue sharing the God-Life with the people in that village. The lead-healer should always remind the people that they are healers, too. The lead-healer should always make sure each person who received the God-Life has a working medical kit and actually uses it as a healer. Each of these villages should also try to share the God-Life with other villages farther out, moving in ever-widening circles.
However, even this was not enough. Some people who had received the God-Life seemed called and gifted and even chosen by the Helping God for special missions. These healers were to go out in teams to the far corners of the earth to start new communities of people being healed by the God-Life. Each new community should be trained in the healing ways of the God-Life and equipped with medical kits. The plan was to start little centers spreading the healing power of the God-Life all around the world.
The meeting of the God-Life people ended with the entire community gathering together to pray for the healing teams being sent to far away lands. They all asked the Helping God to help them, to guide them, to keep them safe, and - most of all - to make them effective in sharing the God-Life.
The healing teams traveled far and wide, and they worked hard to share the God-Life wherever they went. But sometimes, it seemed as if their way was blocked. Sometimes, it seemed as if the Helping God did not want them to go to a certain place or to do a certain thing, at least not yet. Sometimes they had to change their plans.
Whenever the healing teams didn’t know what to do next, they got together and prayed to the Helping God. They talked together about the world around them, about what they remembered from the Healer, about their dreams, about their visions, about what the Helping God seemed to be saying now, or about where the God-Life seemed to be leading. And so through much prayer and talking, they decided together what the Helping God wanted them to do next to continue sharing the God-Life with others.
The great joy for these healing teams, and for all people who shared the God-Life, was in seeing the changes that the God-Life brought to individuals and to villages. The dark-death seemed to be everywhere, and everywhere people were dying slow, angry, sad, painful deaths – even if they didn’t yet realize they were dying. But when the healing teams came, some people began to have hope that their lives could be different. Some people received the God-Life. Their lives were beautifully changed. The dark death lost its grip on them. They began to trade sadness for joy, bitterness for hope, anger for love. The God-Life in them affected their families and their communities. Everywhere they went, the cloud of the dark death was lifted a little. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, people around them began to have hope that they, too, could be free from the dark-death, and they, too, received and began to share the God-Life.
Seeing all of this brought a deep and eternal joy to the healing teams. Their home villages were filled with the same joy and satisfaction when they realized that, through their own work and through the healing teams, they were indeed changing the world by sharing the God-Life.
However, over time, people began to see problems among the God-Life people. Some of them still didn’t want to share the God-Life. They just went back to their own homes and tried to live and make money with their new health from the God-Life. The results of this problem area were doubly poor. First, for the people who didn’t want to share the God-Life, the effects of the God-Life began to fade. Their joy faded; their light faded; their love faded; their health faded. Slowly, the dark-death began to regain its hold on them. Also, the people around them who were still stuck in the dark-death looked at the quiet, selfish, fading lives of these people who had once received the God-Life, and they began to disbelieve in the God-Life. They thought things like, “If the God-Life were so good, she would surely share it with me. If the God-Life were so good, his life would be different, but really it’s about the same as mine.” So the non-sharers not only lost the God-Life in themselves, but they also pushed others away from the God-Life.
Slowly, the God-Life people realized an important truth: The God-Life is the hope of the world, but it must be shared.
Questions for Reflection:
What is the dark death? How have you seen the dark death in others? How have you seen the dark death in you?
Who is the Healer? How did he come?
What is the God-Life? How have you seen the God-Life change others? Has the God-Life changed you? (How?)
What do you think of what the Healer said when he gave people the God-Life?
How does your life need to change to share the God-Life more?
How does our church need to change to share the God-Life more?
Are you going to make those changes?
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