Healing and Faith

Peter J Blackburn

Reading: Matthew 9.1-8,27-34

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Last week we began thinking about “healing”, and focused on two Bible readings – the instant healing of the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5.1-15) and Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12.1-10) for which Paul prayed three times for physical healing and received instead the promise of God’s grace and strength in his weakness.

I told the story of my Mum and Dad and their experience. Their first-born, Kenneth, took sick when he was five, was prayed for and died; their fourth born (me) took sick at age eight, was given two weeks to live, was prayed for and recovered. If God is the healer, if God is love, why does he heal sometimes and not others?

Then we tried to grasp, not just what individual Bible verses say about healing, but the broader biblical teaching – and Dr McPheeters’ summary to the sick man in New York – the five miracles of healing:

• The miracle of the instant cure.

• The miracle of our body’s design.
• The miracle of God’s guidance to a cure.
• The miracle of God’s grace.

• The miracle of the triumphant crossing.

Today our theme is healing and faith. In a number of Jesus’ miracles, faith is a significant factor. What do we mean by “faith”? We read in Matthew 13 that, when Jesus visited his home town, Nazareth, “he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith” (Matthew 13.58). This, and other references, might lead us to the conclusion that, if we believed hard enough, everyone we prayed for would be physically healed.

In Luke 4 we also read about Jesus’ visit to Nazareth. The people were impressed by his teaching – in effect, “we know Jesus, but where did all this come from?” (v. 22) But then they wanted this returning son to “do his thing” for them – “Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum” (v. 23). They were furious with his reply and “got up, drove him out of town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff” (v. 29). Their lack of faith was specifically related to their response to the person of Jesus.

Some folk say, “I have a lot of faith in prayer.” They mean well, and it is only a slight shift but – the issue is “Do we have faith in the God to whom we pray?

The Healing of the Paralysed Man

Faith is a significant element in the record of many healings in the gospels. The centurion who came on behalf of his servant – “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith” (8.10). The woman who touched the edge of his cloak – “Take heart, daughter, your faith has healed you” (9.22). The disciples unable to heal the boy with a demon – “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” “Because you have so little faith...” (17.19,20).

Matthew 9 records four healing miracles. We are considering just two of them this morning.

Jesus has just returned to Capernaum from the region of the Gadarenes and the healing of two demon-possessed men. In Luke 5.17-26 we are told that “as [Jesus] was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judaea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick” (v. 17).

“Some men brought him a paralytic, lying on a mat” (Matthew 9.2a). Mark gives us some more information. The room is so crowded that they have to carry him onto the roof to make a hole in order to lower him through (Mark 2.1-12). We try to imagine the scene inside the room – noise in the ceiling, then bits of mud falling (roofs were often made of woven cane and plastered with mud), then the sky and four faces as the man is lowered right in front of them!

“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven’.” (Matthew 9.2b) Today I want to focus on the significant statement, “when Jesus saw their faith”. Whose faith? We presume the man was able to signify his faith – his desire to be taken to Jesus – but he couldn’t do it without their faith – the faith of his four friends.

What was this faith? It was a confident openness and trust in Jesus – whatever he might do. Undoubtedly they had heard stories of others who had received physical healing through the ministry of Jesus. Was it a surprise to them that Jesus dealt first with a deeper (perhaps even secret) problem? Next week I want to look further at the theme of healing and forgiveness. Right now Jesus is confronting the serious charge of blasphemy. It is easy to say, “your sins are forgiven”, but only God can rightly say that in an absolute sense! Jesus speaks words of physical healing, “Get up, take your mat and go home” (v. 6).

As a sideline, we notice in this story that there was a cost to the home owner in this healing – just as the Gadarenes were upset at the loss of their pigs!

The faith of the four men was expressed in action – carrying their friend to Jesus. This was also true of those who brought the demon-possessed mute to Jesus (vv. 32-33). Their faith-in-action brought the man to the place where the miracle happened.

The Healing of the Blind Men

Then we have the healing of the two blind men (9.27-31). This is a distinctly different occasion in Galilee from the later miracle down south in Jericho when Jesus healed blind men when he was leaving Jericho (19.29-34).

These two men are pleading for Jesus to have mercy on them. They call him “Son of David” (9.27), which suggests that they have come to the conviction that he is the promised Messiah.

They follow Jesus indoors and he asks, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” (v. 28) They confidently answer, “Yes, Lord.” Jesus then touches their eyes and says, “According to your faith will it be done (or let it happen) to you” (v. 29) and their sight is restored.

Their faith didn’t cause the miracle. Rather, it made them ready and able to receive the miracle of healing which they were already convinced Jesus could do.

Jesus actually did miracles in Nazareth, but not many. Because of their lack of faith (11.58), they were not ready or able to receive miracles at the hand of Jesus.

The Faith to be Healed

So what can we say about the “faith to be healed”? Already we have noted that this faith is a confident openness and trust in Jesus – whatever he might do. It involves a conviction about the person and authority of Jesus. It is also a readiness and openness to receive whatever miracle he wants to give.

In Mark 11 we read an account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem – “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (vv. 1-11). Jesus looks around at the temple, but it’s late and he goes back to Bethany with the twelve.

Next day they are heading into town. Jesus is hungry and sees a fig tree in leaf. The first crop of figs should be there, but it isn’t and Jesus says, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again” (v. 14). This is a graphic picture of the barrenness of temple worship which Jesus was about to confront in the city (vv. 15-18).

The next morning they see that the fig tree has withered. Jesus tells them, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins” (vv. 22-25).

Some people take v. 24 to signify a kind of name-it-and-claim-it faith. Against any evidence to the contrary, you must steadfastly “hold onto your healing”.

A beautiful Christian lady – one of our elders, passionate about healing ministry – was dying of cancer. But she was “claiming her healing”. A prayer meeting which met each week in their home couldn’t pray for her because “she was healed”. Her husband would come out to the car to tell us how she was doing. Her family from the other end of the state would ring us up to find out how she was – her husband was not able to talk about her condition in the home. Right until she lapsed into unconsciousness the day before she died, she insisted she was healed. At her bedside when she died, the thought most strongly in my mind was this, “The battle is over! The victory is won!” Her physical battle with cancer was over. But that wasn’t the point. Jesus, not cancer, has won the victory and had received her to the place where there is no more cancer, no more suffering or pain.

So what are some of the important elements of the “faith to be healed”?

• It is faith in God – Creator and heavenly Father. God is the Creator – the designer of our human body. Many of the ailments that afflict us are part of the result of the Fall. They may be life-style related. They may be part of human impact on our environment. Medical research has gained many insights, but no researcher knows the human body and what goes wrong with it as does the Creator himself. The Creator is also our heavenly Father who loves and cares for his children.

• It is faith in Jesus and in his finished work. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world with a mission – he “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10.45). We hear his last cry from the cross, “It is finished!” (John 19.30) – not “I am finished”, but more like “Mission accomplished!” The early Christians readily recognised his fulfilment of Isaiah 53.5 – “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” We pray “in Jesus’ name”, not as a correct formula that guarantees results, but as the only basis on which we can present our requests to God.

• It is a wholehearted openness to the one who gave himself for us and gives himself to us. He taught us most clearly, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” We do not always receive simply on the asking. Often, as we “seek” and “knock”, we are drawn closer to our Lord and to an understanding of how to pray. Someone has said that “Faith is not getting God to give his attention to what we are focusing on, but giving our attention to what he is focusing on” (quoted in Harold Taylor, Sent to Heal). The “five miracles of healing” may help us to widen our focus as we pray in faith for healing.

• It is faith shared within the Body of Christ. In quite a number of the miracles of Jesus, the person healed (or raised!) had no faith for healing – or even opportunity to express faith. In a number of cases, however, there were others – like the four who brought their paralysed friend – who apart from or together with the person were expressing their faith. So we read in James, “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven” (James 5.14-15). In Christ we are inter-related. We feel one another’s joy and pain (Romans 12.15). God gives and increases our faith to prayerfully support one another.