Break and apply

Aloe vera, photographed on the south shore of Kauai. It reached to mid-thigh.

Continuing inspiration from a visit to Kauai.
I wasn’t surprised to find aloe vera plants thriving in the moist climate of Kauai. My puny window plant at home (think “skinny pointy thing”) is pitiful next to the stout succulents I found in the wild. I’ve long heard alternative medicine enthusiasts tout the plant as a cure for various ills. The sap does have some lotion-like benefits when used topically (externally), as in lotions. Stores sell facial and bathroom tissues as “gently infused” with the product. But the modern medical community has warnings for those who ingest aloe-based supplements, saying these may cause abdominal cramps and diarrhea, and actually harm some internal organs.

My window-ready aloe vera
in a comic cat planter.

Talk about skipping some steps in Bible study! For a long time I thought “aloe vera” was somehow related to the “aloes” mentioned in the Bible. These passages led to my confusion:
*The fickle prophet Balaam (the guy with a smart donkey) delivered an “oracle” against the Moabites and bragged on the strength of Israel as like a garden by the river, “like aloes planted by the LORD” (Numbers 24:6).
*Psalm 45:8 acclaims a handsome bridegroom whose “robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.”
*A "woman of the night" (Proverbs 7:7) invites a fool into her chamber, saying, "I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon."
*In another sensual passage (Song of Solomon 4:14), a lover gets quite excited about “bedroom activities,” calling up the fragrances of the day, including “myrrh and aloes.”
*Then we go to the grave, told that Nicodemus brought 75 pounds of mixed myrrh and aloes to prepare Jesus’ body for burial (John 19:29).
As it turns out, those “aloes” weren’t the fleshy tropical plant pictured above. Instead, the term referred to a fragrant wood used as an incense.

Yet there are other plants of Bible times whose properties are worth comparing with aloe vera. One is the balsam tree which once grew in Gilead, and which was the source of the “balm of Gilead” made from its resin, mentioned in Jeremiah 8:22. The area had a large population of “doctors” who administered the “cure.”
 

Centuries later, in this country, weary and discouraged slaves sung of the “balm of Gilead” and how Jesus could “make the wounded whole” and “heal the sin-sick world.”  Indeed, He ministered physical and spiritual healing during His earthly life.  He said he came not for the healthy “but for the sick.  I have not come to call the righteousness, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32, see also Mark 2:17).
 

When broken, an aloe vera stem releases juice. The balsam trees were pierced or sliced for the medicinal resins to drip out.  Jesus was pierced and sliced (flogged) before dying for the sin-sick world. He is the One who rises with “healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2). As the old spiritual continues:

Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work’s in vain,

But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.