In Psalm 42:7, the Sons of Korah lament,“ Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me”( NIV). For them, this distress was the accumulation of trials that had surged one after another, that had led their downcast souls to call out to God. deep calls to deep
Nearly three thousand years later,“ deep calls to deep” once again points to the reality of our own souls, for we are also in great need of remedy. The world we live in is plagued with brokenness and sin that must be dealt with— we use laws to check crime, justice systems to correct injustice, and peace organizations to thwart violence. Yet when we still feel despair for our fractured world, it becomes clear that the methods humans have created to rectify sin are insufficient, that our sin runs so deep that it calls for an even deeper redemption.
MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE GREAT PHYSICIAN
physician capable of healing all our disease and decay, but more importantly, our source of eternal life, who grants us absolute healing from the sin that leads to death.
Claire Lin
Reflecting upon Psalm 42 brought me back to the first day of fourth grade— a morning marred by the shriek of fire truck sirens. My mom’ s eyes were filled with panic as she shoved me out the front door, as if she didn ' t want me to notice the three paramedics standing behind her in our living room.
I couldn’ t concentrate in school that day. Later that afternoon, when the phone rang, the voice on the other end was shaky and wrenched in anguish:“ Grandma, she … she passed away today. Her cancer … it finally—”
That was the first time I ever heard my dad cry.
To be human is to sin, and sin has consequences: it can lead to disease and decay, and it will ultimately result in death. 1 But God offers us hope. He says,“ I have found a ransom for them … They will go to others and say,‘ I have sinned, I have perverted what is right, but I did not get what I deserved. God has delivered me from going down to the pit, and I shall live to enjoy the light of life’”( Job 33:24- 28). In an act of amazing grace, God gave us a Ransom for our sin! Jesus Christ, who is the
1 Romans 6:23
Thus“ deep calls to deep”: we are in profound need of the unfathomable greatness of a Savior. Only He can completely heal us of our sin and, subsequently, our pain. As the preacher Charles Spurgeon wrote,“ the most crimson sins are removed by the crimson of His blood,” and His power to forgive has brought us from death to life. 2
But as people living in a modern culture of logic and method, how do we trust Christ ' s healing?
Manmade models cannot adequately describe the work of an infinite God, but they do offer an interesting perspective from which we can approach this question. In 1963, French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss proposed the“ shamanistic complex,” three levels of belief to explain shaman healing rituals. 3 But his theory stops at“ belief,” which is not enough to understand exactly how healing works. This is where modern medical anthropology comes
It becomes clear that the methods humans have created to rectify sin are insufficient, that our sin runs so deep that it calls for an even deeper redemption. deep
2 Charles Spurgeon
calls
( 1834-1892). Charles Spurgeon
to
’ s Morning and Evening. 1973. deep in
3 Claude Levi-Strauss( 1908-2009). The Sorcerer and His Magic. 1963.
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