Jesus Who? November 4, 5, & 8
Jesus the Healer
We’ve concentrated on Jesus’ words – now look at his actions.
He was known as a healer as much as he was a teacher, If not more. It is hard to know if the crowds came to Jesus more for his radical teaching, or for his radical healing.
Jesus says that the words he teaches are backed up by his miraculous healings and signs. Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." John 10:37-38
Jesus words and his actions, specifically his healing are deeply connected.
His actions point to his identity.
In a lesser known chapter of ’Return of the King’ Gandalf cries:
"Let us not stay at the door, for the time is urgent. Let us enter! For it is only in the coming of Aragorn that any hope remains for the sick that lie in the House. Thus spake Ioreth, wise-woman of Gondor: The hands of the King are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known."
Stories of healing
Jesus healed in so many different ways
Many places in the Gospels talk of Jesus healing everyone in the large crowds that come to him. It doesn’t say how they are healed, just that he heals them.
Luke 8
Jesus Raises a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman
40 Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. 41 Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house 42 because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.
As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.
45 "Who touched me?" Jesus asked.
When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you."
46 But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me."
47 Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48 Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace."
49 While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. "Your daughter is dead," he said. "Don’t bother the teacher anymore."
50 Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, "Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed."
51 When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. 52 Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. "Stop wailing," Jesus said. "She is not dead but asleep."
53 They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. 54 But he took her by the hand and said, "My child, get up!" 55 Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. 56 Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened.
Mark 8
Jesus Heals a Blind Man at Bethsaida
22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"
24 He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around."
25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Jesus sent him home, saying, "Don’t even go into the village."
Healing from a distance
Luke 7
The Faith of the Centurion
1 When Jesus had finished saying all this to the people who were listening, he entered Capernaum. 2 There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3 The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, 5 because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." 6 So Jesus went with them.
He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7 That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ’Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ’Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ’Do this,’ and he does it."
9 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." 10 Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.
Many modern people like to discount Jesus’ healings as fabrication of his followers, but even his enemies of the day did not say that he didn’t heal, or that he was a con – using hype to convince people that they were healed rather than really healing them, or setting up healthy people to look sick and then “healing” them. What they question was not his healings, but the power by which he healed! They accused him of healing by the power of the devil.
It may be that even Jesus enemies accepted his healings, first because the saw the evidence, but also because they had a worldview that allowed for divine healing. A worldview is just that, the way that we view the world. It’s the filter through which we see – a filter of assumptions, beliefs, images, metaphors, values, and ideas that we inherit and construct from our family, our teachers, our peers, our community, and our culture.
Most of us in the modern West—religious or irreligious—have inherited a worldview that was formed largely in the seventeenth century. In this perspective, our world is best compared to a machine. God, if God exists, created the universe like a huge clock: the complex mechanism was designed and wound up in the beginning, was set in motion, and has been ticking away ever since, slowly winding down through a process called entropy. Or it could be compared to brightly colored billiard balls racked up on a green felt table: in the beginning, God arranged the table and hit the white cue ball, and ever since, balls have been bouncing into balls as the universe unfolds in a closed chain of cause and effect.
In this worldview, miracles—if they occur—would involve interference from outside. God reaches in and fiddles with the gears of the clock, or God intervenes and pushes a billiard ball so its natural path is redirected. In this view, God is the outsider, natural causes create effects mechanically and automatically unless God intervenes….
But Jesus lived long before clocks, billiard tables, or complex machines of any kind. His worldview, his model of the universe, was very different—more organic, less mechanistic. In many ways it was simpler, but in many ways it was grander, more alive, freer, subtler, and more dynamic: God was neither absent and outside the universe nor trapped inside it. Rather, God was connected to the universe, present with it, and intimately involved in it. So the universe was less like a machine and more like a family, less like a mechanism and more like a community. The very words kingdom of God suggests as much: kings are relationally involved in their kingdoms. They are present, active, participatory, and engaged. They aren’t simply a part of the kingdom—one part among many—but neither are they apart from it.
A relational/organic worldview allows for God’s involvement in creation – it actually expects it. God is not breaking the laws of nature, moving the balls on the pool table to suit his desires, he is ruling his Kingdom as he sees fit. So for Jesus and his disciples, even for the religious leaders of the day, Jesus’ miracles are not shocking – they are awe inspiring but not worldview shaking events.
The exciting thing for me is that in our post-modern age, there is a greater acceptance of an organic universe rather than a mechanistic one. Post moderns are not near as opposed to the idea of Jesus healing.
The problem with a more relational/organic view of the universe is that it is not quite as predictable as a mechanistic one. This is why some men love their cars more than their wives – you can predict a car! So we cannot always predict when God will heal, and when he will not. – Jennifer & Richard.
Jesus usually connects healing with faith – in Capernaum he did not heal as many as he normally would because of their unbelief.
He often told people whom he healed, “Your faith has made you well.”
In Mark 9:24, a man has brought his sick son to Jesus and he says to Jesus, “Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.”
23 “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”
24 The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”
There are so-called faith healers today that will tell people who do not get healed that their lack of healing is because of their lack of faith. It’s adding insult to injury!
Jesus heals the man’s son. It tells me that the faith that is required is enough faith to ask for healing.
I think that Jesus tells the people “your faith has made you well for completely different reasons that to create a theology of faith and healing.
In Jesus day, sickness was often seen as a result of sin in the sick person’s life. Not only was the person sick, but also the people around them would say that they were a faithless person – it was proven by the illness.
Jesus turns it on its end – he says it’s not your faithlessness that made you sick; it is your faithfulness that has made you well! He removes their sickness and their shame.
Does Jesus heal today?
Yes
2 reasons –
1) Jesus sent his followers out to heal – not just the 12, but the 70
It is obvious that it is his desire that the community that forms around him would be a healing community
Even outside of the community, Jesus name is powerful:
"Master," said John, "we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us."
"Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."
- Luke 9:49-50
2) Stories of my healing & prayer – Arlene’s infection
My own experience – my back
How to pray for others.
Be normal! Jesus had a definite lack of hype.
Ask – Jesus asked people what they wanted – he didn’t just assume.
Ask to pray, to touch
Pray with your eyes and ears open – with humility
Ask in Jesus’ name
Ask if anything is happening – keep praying
Give thanks
