Sick in Sin

A lot’s been happening with me these last couple weeks, and it’s been awesome.  One thing that’s been great is having the opportunity to lead worship for Lifepoint Church’s student ministry Ignite in a couple weeks.  This is a huge and incredible opportunity for me as I’ll be satisfying my two big passions in ministry:  music and student ministry.

Now I know you’re probably wondering about the title and what it has to do with the above statement.  I saw this song on the setlist for a worship service we’re planning in the future.  It’s an incredibly powerful song and we’ve done it before, but I remember there being a big mess about this song two years ago.  It’s called “Healer” by Hillsong and it was written by a young man named Michael Guglielmucci who reportedly had terminal cancer.  The lyrics are incredibly intimate and the music just hits you right in the chest.  Here’s the song:

When I first heard the song, I was completely blown away.  But then I heard about a big controversy surrounding the song after it had been released two years ago.  After digging for a little bit, here’s what I found:

As it turns out, Michael Guglielmucci lied about his battle with cancer.  There was no cancer to begin with.  Being an amateur songwriter, I was furious at first.  My thoughts went along the lines of, how can this liar write a song that touches thousands people while I’m being completely honest and getting nowhere? I think many people were hurt and/or outraged by the purported fraud that they bought.  I know it definitely didn’t help the secular world’s view of Christianity.  After all, if a musician can lie about having something like cancer to influence people in ministry, what’s stopping a pastor or, God forbid, even the Pope from misleading thousands and even millions of people?

The first time we did this song at Lifepoint, I wasn’t sure if we’d even be able to play it due to the firestorm surrounding it.  I was a bit miffed at the song and the artist behind it, so it was really hard for me to get behind it at first.  That’s when I decided to take the song at face value; it’s truth is universal, no matter who wrote it.  We are all physically sick and need the healing power of Jesus for our ailments.

But there’s also something else at work too.  In the news video, Guglielmucci’s father said that he had been struggling with sin, and because of that, physical ailments began to show up in his life.  Guglielmucci used the cancer as a cover to escape the pain and the guilt of his sin.  That got me thinking:  what kind of masks do we have for our own sin?  What have we done in our own lives to cover up our imperfections and put on a “game face” for our ministry?  Sure, none of us have strapped on an oxygen mask and pretended to have cancer to minister to people, but we’ve all had a point in our lives when we were struggling and still felt like we had to “perform” in ministry.  This is something that God has been wrecking me with lately, as there have been times when I was running on empty in my personal life, but still put on a happy face for Sundays.  This has challenged me to seek Jesus first and nothing else.

When viewed in the light of sin and not just physical sickness, I believe the lyrics take on a completely new and powerful meaning

I believe You’re my healer
I believe You are all I need
I believe You’re my portion
I believe You’re more than enough for me
Jesus, You’re all I need

Maybe next time we shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

Advertisement

~ by wesrose on April 15, 2010.