Language is always changing. Like the Word of God himself, words have a life of their own. They can express eternal truths, but only if the speaker and the hearer, or the writer and the reader, share the same language. But they have no life on their own. They get their force from those who utter them, and from the ideas which they express.
Five centuries ago, people could talk of the silly saints, meaning God's blessed people. The related German word, selig, has kept its meaning, but the English word, perhaps through its association with God's blessed flock, has come to reflect another aspect of the silliness of sheep! Which brings me to treacle.
When the Bible was first being translated into English, treacle meant medicine. Only later, when medicines came to consist of herbs mixed with syrup, did it take on its present-day meaning. God's Word, in the Bible, in a sermon, or in the person of Jesus hanging upon the Cross, could be a treacle, a cure for our souls, made sick through sin.
I am writing this in the Inselspital, very conscious of the use of medicine and the value of health. It is no accident that so many of our Lord's miracles involved healing. True health, true wholeness, was a powerful picture of the release from self-centred sin which new life in God's kingdom offers. Indeed, in Jesus' language, the same word meant both "salvation" and "healing." "Go on your way, your faith has cured you" could equally be translated as "your faith has saved you."
We must not be misled by this. There are big differences between being healed and being saved. Human disease responds to human treatment, and while the human body responds to prayer and love better than a motor car, its parts have a limited and in part a predictable life. Sin is on a different level altogether, and here in the Insel I was struck by a phrase in the Eucharist. God does not promise to cure our medical complaints. What God brings is something totally different: newness of life.
The chance of new life - being born again - is not something which the Inselspital offers. It comes from God. We live the new life as part of Christ's body, the church, but there is next to nothing in common between a hospital and a church. A hospital is a means to an end. A church is a body of people who are on the way to new life.
We should not see the church as a form of spiritual hospital, to be judged by how healthy we feel when we leave it. The church is what we are when we come together, in unity (though not in uniformity, for each of us has different needs and different gifts!) The church can provide a medicine for our souls - or rather God can provide such a healing power - through the love and care and witness that binds us together.
The events of Good Friday and Easter bring home to us the fact that true health is not simply the absence of disease. It is something that even death cannot destroy. The Father's power to create anew, the Son's love in his victory over sin and death, and the Spirit's strength are treacle enough to transform all of us, God's silly people.
HD