Jesus Our Saviour: The Healer of Inner Brokenness
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Date
2012
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Publisher
Tangaza University College
Abstract
The idea to undertake this research on the topic of healing of inner
brokenness came to birth on two different planes: one personal and the other
academic. On the personal level, I discovered through Dr. Whitfield’s book, Healing
the Child Within, the effect of trauma on the human psyche. He describes how a
false self emerges when the “Child Within”, “that part of each of us which is
ultimately alive, energetic, creative and fulfilled”
1
is not nurtured accordingly.
Recent breakthroughs in the realm of psychology and psychiatry have shown
that specific parts of the brain play an important role in forming a healthy emotional
relationship, especially during the first year of life. However, “significant
interruption of healthy development by repeated trauma often leaves a child in an
out-of-control ‘fight, flight or freeze’ state, often called post traumatic stress
disorder”.
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In other words, our basic personalities depend on those who have either
consciously or unconsciously loved us or refused to love us. Growing up in troubled
families where sexual abuse, mental and emotional abuse, child neglect, and ignoring or thwarting the child’s spirituality or spiritual growth are rife, disrupt and
impair the child’s integral human development.
3
This can lead to some vices such as homosexuality, masturbation and many
other difficulties pertaining to feeling arousal or pleasure as an adult. The crux of the
matter is that, there is a strong connection between what happened to us when we
were little and our daily repetition, compulsion, addiction and craving. A coherent
childhood’s story can easily account for our current type of personality. We are like
the man under the law described by Paul: “I do not understand my own actions. For I
do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. […] I can will what is right, but
I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I
do” (cf. Romans 7:15.18-19).
4
Discovering the “Child Within” and its story is a pathway to personal
growth, emotional and intellectual integration. Buddhists describe the Self as an
endless peeling onion. To break free of being a victim or a martyr of our compulsive
behaviour needs a thorough exploration and integration of the inner Self.
Christianity claims that the salvation of the human race has been achieved in the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus-Christ. How can we call Jesus of Nazareth, the
Healer of inner brokenness in this context of human psychological suffering? Can
he make whole our puzzling inner wounds and alienation?
Over the years, people have developed an over-active brain and unhealthy
defences due to the traumatic environment in which they have grown up. The
language of the brain which is expressed through our feeling of fear, anxiety, anger,
rage and impulsivity is nothing else than stress response systems to increased
excitation of the brain stem cells.
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The healing of our stress disordered brain and
body is indispensable for our mental, emotional and physical well-being.
Like the deer that yearns for running streams, our soul is yearning for a
liberating healing from our childhood coping and survival response of anger that has
long caused us unceasing problems.
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With Jesus as the ultimate therapist can we
start to relax in situations that used to trigger anger and rage? Is Jesus still relevant
in our existential torture of loneliness and search for meaning?
In the hope of trying to answer these questions and clarify the nature of
healing causality, I turned to soteriology, the systematic study of salvation, namely
Jesus’ saving work in our lives. Here comes in the second, more academic factor at
the origin of this long essay. Having done an elective entitled, How does Jesus
Christ Save us, and read Father Eamonn Mulcahy’s doctoral thesis, The Cause of
our Salvation, my quest for salvific healing was increased.
On the question: how are we saved by Jesus of Nazareth? The answer was:
by the love mediated in the whole life of Christ – incarnation, ministry, death,
resurrection and sending of the Spirit.
8
While we appreciate the many positive
insights of this thesis, we shall attempt to articulate a mystical soteriology of union
or oneness wherein all the major soteriological models find their expression –
revelation, redemption, liberation, divinisation, justification, sacrifice, satisfaction,
substitution and reconciliation.
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Keywords
Jesus, Salvation, Healer, Inner