Healing the Brokenhearted

Rethinking the heart.

Mending a Broken Heart

For years I had a particular vision of what a broken heart was. It is a common theme. Every genre music I’ve heard has songs describing it. You know the lines…

The woman I have loved is gone. The world I know has moved on and left me behind. I am suffering. I am wretched by loss. What once was, is no longer. Along with the separation, comes a broken heart. Heartache.

Jesus Christ has a line about this, too. In the book of Luke the following scene is recorded:

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

I was reading this and that line, “he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,” caught my attention. I found myself asking, “What does it mean to heal a broken heart?”

My friend Makoto Fujimura speaks a lot about brokenness and mending. He uses the practice of kintsugi as an analogy. To be honest, I’ve never really liked the analogy. Brokenness assumes fixing. Fixing sounds mechanical. It’s what a mechanic does to a car. Humans require loving, not mending. Notably, Mako talks about this, too. But more, the idea of rebirth, a birth from above, or resurrection, seemed much more aligned with my personal experience.

But here was Jesus talking about the brokenhearted and healing. I had to confront it. What was Jesus talking about here?

The Heart

Before talking about what the healing of a broken heart is we have to address the idea of the heart. In current western culture the heart is the part of the person most specifically associated with emotions – we think with our mind, we feel with our hearts. This is not the way the listeners of Jesus would have understood it. In the Hebrew world (and their definition of the word), the heart is the center of the entire person. It would be associated with the seat of our will, or our spirit. Our desires are found in our heart. Action originates here.

This definition makes the idea of a broken heart much more dramatic than simply having to deal with sad feelings (not to belittle that at all). A broken heart is a heart/will/spirit that is not working correctly. Maybe it is being interrupted by fear or pain or guilt or shame. Maybe it is anticipating betrayal or violence and is therefore unwilling to make certain choices. The heart in such a disposition requires healing in order for it to originate action towards – in the case of Jesus’s propositions – the kind of life Jesus proposes.

Want the really good life? You have to be willing. No one is going to drag you into it. Don’t think it is possible for you? You won’t go. Simple as that.

The Vision

But what if what Jesus is saying is true? If he was sent to heal the brokenhearted what would that mean?

A broken heart that was healed would be functioning freely. Unhindered by fear or pain or guilt or shame, the heart would originate action with ease and toward goodness. Things like generosity would flow without the fear of being taken for granted. Doing something for someone else would not require reciprocity. One’s ideas could be voiced honestly, clearly, and openly.

Can you imagine a world filled with people who were like that?

The Process

For this to work, we have to assume that the healing of the heart is possible – not in a some general sense, but in a very personal one. That pain you and I have suffered (and caused), and the wounds that remain, can be healed.

The proposition of Christ is that He takes it upon Himself to do the heavy lifting. The actual healing is something He does. We don’t have direct access to our hearts to do much about them. We know that love is a transformative power. But love is only experienced in relationship and requires some perfection in relational matters to establish trust. Without this kind of perfection, and the subsequent trust, we run the risk of recoiling – responding to the possible break of trust – just as the transformation is beginning. Instead of putting our trust in other people, or even ourselves, Christ is there to be that perfect person for whomever puts their trust in Him.

There is a risk, of course. As with any relationship, there is risk in expose, in sharing, in trusting ourselves to another. What if Christ turns out to be something other than what we think we need?

This of course is a pain many experience when the find themselves hurt by communities that proclaim Christ but are not engaged in His life. It is an unfortunate reality that many such places and experiences exist. The relational damage is one thing. The doubt cast on Christ himself because of the actions of those who proclaim him is another level of damage entirely. Imagine hurting someone in the name of the very person who came to heal them?

Such stories bring to light the responsibility anyone who proclaims Christ has, particularly to those who don’t know who Christ is. They also bring to light the sacred nature of relationship – any relationship. When two or three people to open up to one another, they bear the parts of themselves that carry the image of God. Namely their hearts. It is in relationship that we are hurt. It is also in relationship that we might be healed.

What can we do about this?

It is u, literally, that are the means. It is the persons that we are in relationship with others that make the difference. In this way, with patience, forgiveness, through action, that we may step into the life Christ proposes for us. It is a life in which we get to bear witness, even be conduits of, the transformational love Christ himself has lived out in this world.

Admittedly, finding people with whom to do this can be difficult. But first things first. We are invited into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ – one that no one else has. Just you, or me, and him. This first relationship, is the one that has the power to transform us. In the same way our relationship with others does, but more so. In our own journey with Christ, we become the kinds of people we are searching for. We learn to be that with Jesus. We work it out with those who are literally and figuratively closest with us.

This is not to say that finding others isn’t important. It is to say that other people will not heal us. Christ will.