Rev. Don Campbell
Jeremiah 8:22
A SONG A DAY, January 16, 2020
“There Is a Balm in Gilead”
Jeremiah was grieving for his people, for they had been taken against their will to live in a foreign land. He asked, “Is there no Balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored.” The hymn appeared in “Folk Songs of the American Negro,” 1907). African American theologian Howard Thurman (1899-1981) commented on the hymn: “The slave caught the mood of this spiritual dilemma and with it did an amazing thing. He straightened the question mark in Jeremiah’s sentence into an exclamation point: ‘There is a balm in Gilead!’ Here is the note of creative triumph.” The refrain is first:
There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole,
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.
Sometimes I feel discouraged
and think my work’s in vain,
but then the Holy Spirit
revives my soul again.
There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole,
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.
If you cannot preach like Peter,
if you cannot pray like Paul,
you can tell the love of Jesus
and say, “He died for all.”
There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole,
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.
The greatest slavery is the slavery of sin; the love of Jesus is the balm to heal.
“Link to YouTube Video – There Is a Balm in Gilead”
“Link to YouTube Video – There Is a Balm in Gilead”
