Jesus is…Healer
Luke 5: 17 – 26
Of all the names/titles given to Jesus, i.e., Lord, Savior etc., this name “Healer” is perhaps the most challenging for us in the 21st century. What do we mean when we say “Jesus is Healer?” We survey the ministry of Jesus and depending on how one classifies the event, there are between 30 and 40 healing events in the four Gospels alone, and that doesn’t include the healing events in the book of Acts performed by the apostles in Jesus’ name. We read a passage like Luke 4:40, just prior to the account we read a few moments ago, that says, “As the sun went down that evening, people throughout the village brought sick family members to Jesus. No matter what their diseases were, the touch of his hand healed every one.” So, what gives? After all, we pray for healing all the time, but far too often, the healing we seek never comes. If Jesus is Healer, where do we see this healing happening in our world today?
We hear so much these days about rising health care premiums and there is much debate about the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. There certainly wasn’t much of a problem with healthcare with Jesus around. I guess the folks in 1st century Israel just called their health care plan Jesuscare! Got a backache? Go see Jesus! Got the flu? Go see Jesus. Surgery? Who needs surgery? Just go see Jesus! One touch is all you need. Must have been nice, and no increase in premiums. It sure would have been nice to get in on some of those healings. Makes us want to ask: When did Jesus go out of the healing business? Don’t we rate as much as the folks back then? What about my friend with cancer? What about us, Jesus?
Yes, what about us? Why don’t we see more of these healings that Jesus performed so long ago? Doesn’t the Bible say, “Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow”? Yes, it does. Jesus Christ is indeed the same yesterday and today and forever. And, that’s what we’re here to talk about that, yes, today “Jesus is…Healer.”
I’m going to challenge us for one moment to take all the pre-conceived ideas of “faith-healing” out of our minds. Don’t think about Benny Hinn, and let your memories of Kathryn Kuhlman and Oral Roberts fade. I’m not going to dwell on those folks with their traveling road shows who fill convention halls with desperate folks looking for a quick fix. There’s too much to talk about to spend much time on those people and events this morning, but still it leaves us to wonder why we don’t just go down to St. Francis or Glenwood and clear the place out in Jesus name.
I’ll admit I don’t have that kind of power. Boy, I wish I did! I would parlay that into a mountain of cash and we could pay off the debt of FUMC quickly, for sure. There are folks in the world who say that I simply don’t have enough faith, or that those who are sick don’t have enough faith to be healed. Just believe a little more—faith of a mustard seed and all that, right? Hey? That’s the kind of faith these friends had on this day. Luke (who was a physician, by the way) tells us when Jesus saw “their faith,” his healing power went into action. Notice, Luke doesn’t tell us anything about the paralyzed man’s faith. Perhaps he had no faith at all, certainly none that was expressed in this episode. Yes, faith is often present when it comes to healing, but whose faith is most important?
Or more, the same people who would say today that I don’t have enough faith would also say the problem must be un-confessed sin. That’s part of the issue on the day Jesus was healing this paralyzed man. Jesus knew the Pharisees and scribes were watching. They were a sect in Judaism who had a strong belief in the idea that if someone was sick or blind, there must be some sin in their life that caused it. Paralyzed? What did you do to deserve that? Confess your sin and perhaps you can get well. That’s was their attitude. I wonder if that’s why Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus didn’t address the physical ailment first. He first addressed the spiritual reality, and man, that set the Pharisees off. “Who but God can forgive sins?” The Pharisees question and Jesus’ response might help us understand what was happening then, and what is happening now.
Jesus looked at the Pharisees and said, “Just so you know, I’ve got authority to forgive sins on earth, I’ll say, ‘Take up your bed and walk’.” At Jesus’ word, the young man jumped up, took his bed and ran out of the house. Jesus’ healing power was a sign. Here’s an important point to understand those 30 – 40 healing accounts in the Gospels—the healings were signs designed to point to the eternal blessings Jesus was bringing, the kingdom of heaven that Jesus was bringing to earth. These healings pointed ahead to the ultimate healing that Jesus was in the process of accomplishing, and that ultimate healing was not limited to the folks back then. No, it is for all of us, too. Yes, every one of us here today–Jesus loves you and me as much as he loved those folks back then. We are at no disadvantage to the people who were healed in his ministry.
So, what’s the deal, preacher? You’re really not helping answer the question. Allow me to try: Jesus is still in the healing business, just not necessarily in the same manner as he did back then. What do I mean?
First, let’s acknowledge that sometimes for unexplained reasons, God chooses to miraculously heal someone. A tumor is present on one visit to the doctor, and the next scan shows no trace of a tumor. Poof! Just like that, and there’s no other explanation for it but that God did it. All we can say is God surprises us with His mercy, and in those times all we can say is, “Praise the Lord!”
Second, let’s also acknowledge the healing power of medicine. Advances in health care are astounding compared to the first century. There were physicians in the first century. This account was written by one. And, people who were sick sought out physicians for their maladies. Recall the woman with the flow of blood. Luke tells her story, too. She’d spend twelve years going to doctors, but none of them could heal her. The health care advances of just the last 25 years would likely have led to her healing. The Lord uses doctors and medicines to promote healing today in ways never known before. I remind us the bible says “Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights.” Medical care is a great gift that promotes healing, and we are right to view it that way.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, knew the importance of health care. He even penned a volume that was required reading for his assistants. Wesley’s Primitive Physick was the equivalent of a New York Times bestseller. It went through twenty-three printings and was used well into the 1880’s, decades after Wesley’s death. In that volume, Wesley encouraged the use of doctors, and even promoted the idea that his preachers should offer health care to those in their charge, thus his volume of remedies and advice on health and healing. My disclaimer—I’m no doctor, and I don’t want to treat your illness! Still, we acknowledge the power of God to heal through medical care in the 21st century.
For all that healthcare does for our healing, we still face the question, “Why not everyone?” I remind us that Jesus did heal this paralyzed man, and he would heal many others, too, including a leper in this same chapter of Luke, as well as Peter’s mother-in-law in the previous chapter, but I also remind us that every one of these persons he healed would later die. Their physical healing was only temporary. What? Was Jesus’ faith not strong enough? There must be an expiration date on miracles!
No, that wasn’t it at all! We come to Jesus seeking a cure for what ails us, and there is no cure for death…there is only healing. When we proclaim Jesus is Healer, it is a statement that reaches beyond the physical. We go beyond the temporal to acknowledge, even as Jesus did, that healing is first a spiritual process before it is a physical one. Curing the body is a physical process. Healing the soul is a spiritual one. Curing the body is temporal, but healing the soul is eternal. We come to Jesus as healer seeking a cure for something physical. What Jesus as healer offers is something eternal.
How would Jesus gain this healing for us all? By dealing with the root problem that causes all the misery and the illness and the heartbreak and the backache and the bronchitis and the cancer in this world. Jesus gains the ultimate healing for us, the eternal healing, by dealing with the root problem of sin.
Sin. We circle back to something I said earlier, but don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that a particular disease or illness can be traced to a particular sin. That would be simplistic and wrong. There are a lot of unrepentant sinners who are perfectly healthy, and there are a lot of good, faithful Christians who are afflicted with chronic illness and pain. So the sickness-to-sin correlation is not that simple. But truly, the general sinful condition that pervades this fallen world, ever since the time of Adam, and the sinful nature that we all inherit from Adam and pass down to our children is the root problem that results in all the damage and disease and misery that afflicts the human family. And to fix this, Jesus had to get to the bottom of it.
And, Jesus did so by carrying our sins in his body to the cross. When Jesus sheds his blood for the sins of the world, that my friends, is big medicine! As Isaiah 53:4-5 says,
“Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.”
Do we know that? Do we know that it was our sins for which Jesus died? Yes, our sins–of not loving God, of not hearing and heeding his Word. Our sins of wanting to be our own god, to make our own decisions about what is right and wrong. Our sins of lack of love for our neighbor. Of being jealous of our neighbor’s success. Of grumbling about those the Lord has placed in our life. Of gossip and greed. Of selfishness and un-forgiveness. Yes, those are our sins that Jesus is bearing, bleeding on the cross.
The fact that Jesus is bearing our sins, that Jesus is shedding his blood for them–Jesus on the cross is purchasing our healing. Sins forgiven means curse lifted. Resurrection ahead. Healing ahead. For you. For me. Forever. It’s as good as Christ’s own resurrection from the dead. It’s ours, through faith in him. He shares his gifts with us.
How do the gifts get delivered to our door, with our name on it? Two words—Word and Sacrament. The ongoing ministry of the church is God’s means of Fed-Exing the gifts Christ won for you on the cross and getting them to you where you live. Word and Sacrament are no mere clichés. They are God’s delivery system for life and salvation, for healing of the soul, and, yes, healing of the body, too.
God is not just interested in saving our soul. He has also promised to redeem our body. God is committed to restoring creation, and that includes our bodies. God is going to raise up our bodies on the last day. We believe in exactly what God has promised: the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
In the Word preached, the Gospel is heard with our ears and taken into the heart with gladness. In baptism, water is applied to these physical bodies, and in communion, the bread and wine represent the body and blood, and we receive the elements—we eat, we drink—and in so doing we receive Christ. Physical elements for physical people, yet working out an eternal healing that redeems both body and soul because Jesus is Healer. And, because Jesus is Healer, we pray—we pray for healing in the body and in the soul.
