‘It is I, the Lord, who gives you healing’
Exodus 15:26
Exodus 15:26
God said these words to the Israelites, when they were thirsty and grumbling in the desert. He then led them to the living water at Elim and eventually to the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. God offered healing to the Israelites repeatedly, in the psalms and through the prophets. The Old Testament records eighteen individual and collective physical healings. In a wider and fuller sense, healing in the Old Testament meant repentance and reconciliation with God: ‘It is he who forgives all your guilt, who heals every one of your ills’ (Psalm 102:3).
Jesus, too, brought healing, so that ‘all those who touched him were cured’ (Mark 6:58). He sent out his disciples to cure the sick (Luke 10:9; Mark 16:18; Matthew 10:1,7) and many were cured. (Mark 6:12). This healing work continued in the early church. St Peter healed the bedridden Aeneas at Lydda (Acts 9:34) and St Paul refers to healing as a ministry.
(1 Corinthians 12:9).
But how can this promised healing be real for us today, for the aging, the disabled and those with terminal illness? Human need of every kind cries out to God for healing. We cannot cure mortality. The healing miracles in the gospels, like those in the Old Testament, were often associated repentance and with faith. The Good News, ‘repent and believe’
(Mark 1:15) brought healing to the sick. (Luke 7:22) Jesus’ forgiveness healed the paralytic on a stretcher. (Luke 5:25). Faith saved the blind beggar. (Mark 10:52), The gospel healings were not just medical cures; they were ‘signs’ to inspire faith (John 2:12; 20:30), conversion, and a healing of the heart.
This healing of the heart often takes place without any physical healing. St Paul discovered that his prayer for healing was not answered in the way he hoped. God said, ‘My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness.’ So Paul ‘delights’ in his weakness, ‘that the power of Christ may stay over me. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’
(2 Corinthians 12:9-10). His healing was a strengthening in his relationship to God, transforming his attitude to his physical frailty.
The penitent thief on the cross, unlike the other thief, did not ask to be saved from death. Rather, he asked Jesus, ‘remember me, when you come into your kingdom’ ( Luke 23:42). He was hoping for a salvation beyond death and Jesus answered him: ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’ (Luke 23:43). For the good thief, as for St Paul, suffering with Christ brought, not physical healing, but a healing of the heart. Death became the gateway to paradise. .
Jesus performed his last healing miracle in the garden of Gethsemane, healing the high priest’s servant. Here he faced his greatest crisis, the imminent prospect of pain and death. He was totally alone, abandoned by his disciples and the great crowds who had followed him.
Jesus resolved this terrible crisis not by miracles but by
surrender to God’s will. ‘He accepted death’ (Philippians 2:8). He prayed, ‘let your will be
done, not mine’. ( Luke 22:66). His constant rebellion against sickness and death was
over. ‘Although he was a son, he learnt to obey though suffering.’ (Hebrews 5:8).
Surrender to God’s will was a continuing process, finding completion in his
last words, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit’ (Hebrews 5:8). The physician
did not heal himself. The saviour did not save himself. The one who raised the
dead, died.
So the promise of healing, meaning to make whole, contains a paradox. Physical and mental healing restores health and reduces suffering. But healing, in the deeper sense of reconciliation with God, comes through acceptance of suffering, because suffering leads to salvation and death leads to victory (1 Corinthians 15:5).
We are all pilgrims, like the Israelites in the desert. The promise of healing is real, because the journey is not in vain. ‘For we know that when the tent that we live in on earth is folded up, there is a house built by God for us, an everlasting home, not made by human hands, in the heavens.’(2 Corinthians 5: 1). Jesus made peace by the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:20). ‘He will give light to those who dwell in darkness, those who dwell in the shadow of death, and guide us into the way of peace.’ (Luke 1:79).
Geoff Bignell
March 2016
March 2016
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