Three weeks ago I was sitting
in Ingham church aware that I was due to go into
The theme is important for two
reasons: first, healing was a significant part of the ministry of Jesus and
the apostles (though never allowed greater importance than the preaching
of the gospel), and, second, there is a lot of misconception and misinformation
made worse by showmen who make millions from their TV programmes and healing
crusades.
Let me make
it quite clear that I don’t believe, as some do, that the age of
miracles concluded with the death of the apostles. Yet in my forty years of
active ministry I can think of only two staggering miracles I have witnessed.
It is God who heals. It is too easy to slip over into a desire for personal
approval and glory. Let me share some of my parents’ experience.
My father was a Methodist
minister. Mum and Dad’s first child, Kenneth, was born while they were
stationed at Enoggera. The family moved to
I was born in Murgon four
years later. When I was eight, we were living in Stanthorpe. Dad had contracted
tuberculosis and the cold dry climate was reckoned good for convalescence. But
I took sick and tests confirmed that I had just two weeks to live. The diary
Dad kept during that time records that some folk from the church picked them up
– they had no car – and took them to the parsonage where people had gathered to
pray for me.
I am sure people prayed as earnestly
for Kenneth – the brother I never knew – as they did for me. It is just not
possible to answer the question why he was taken and I was healed. But I do
affirm that there is infinitely more to God’s purpose for us than our physical
lifetime can ever contain.
In John 5 we read about the
healing at the Pool of Bethesda. When I visited the Pool of Bethesda in
February 2001, our Jewish guide explained that the rock is limestone. Water
hollows it out. Evidently, water would build up in one of the hollows to a
point where it was suddenly released, causing a periodic bubbling spring which
the people believed to be caused by an angel. That explanation is verse 4 in
the old Bible, but missing from the oldest manuscripts. The gospel record
doesn’t endorse this belief, even though it explains why so many sick people
were there. The problem was that only the fittest people were ever healed.
But, of all the people there
that day at the pool, Jesus only came to one man. He had been an invalid for
thirty-eight years. “When Jesus say him lying there and learned that he had
been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get
well?’ ” (John 5.6).
We would think of that as an
obvious, almost insulting, question. Why else would he be waiting there? Weren’t all the other folk wanting to get well too?
But when we hear the man’s
answer, we gain insight into Jesus’ question – “Sir, I have no one to help me
into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to
get in, someone else does down ahead of me” (v. 7). Instead, of saying a
simple “yes”, he complains that he is never able to get in first.
“Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get
up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat
and walked” (vv. 8,9).
Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh
In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul tells
about “a man in Christ” who had “visions and revelations” from the Lord. There
is no doubt that he is referring to his own experiences, because he goes on to
say that “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly
great revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of
Satan, to torment me” (v. 7). What was this “thorn in the flesh”? some difficult person in the life of the church? No, it was
literally “in the flesh” – a “painful physical ailment”, as the Good News
paraphrases it. Many suggestions have been made as to just what it was. But it
is as well we don’t know, since Paul’s experience can be applied to any of us.
Paul says he prayed three
times for the Lord to take it away from him, but the Lord answered, “My grace
is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9).
Some have argued that it just
can’t have been physical, or Paul, of all persons, would have been healed. But
I think it is as well he wasn’t healed physically. Why? Because so many times
we aren’t! We have this idea that divine healing should be an instant “zap!”
out of heaven bringing physical healing. When it isn’t, we feel guilty –
blaming ourselves and our prayer partners for lack of faith and persistence –
or let down – God hasn’t lived up to our expectations.
In the late 70’s I heard an
American by the name of Danny Morris speak in
“We have come to pray for
God’s miracles of healing for you. Which miracle do you want?” Before the man
could answer, he went on to explain five miracles God gives in answer to our
prayers. At the end, the man said, “I want any miracle God wants to give” –
which, of course, became the title of Danny Morris’ book. These “five miracles”
are a useful, but not exhaustive summary. I am sharing them with you in my own
words.
• The
miracle of the instant cure. That was so with the healing at the Pool of
Bethesda. However, this healing sometimes occurs over a period of time as in a
story I will share with you in a moment, but it is beyond
normal medical explanation.
• The
miracle of our body’s design. God designed our bodies with a natural
capacity to be healed. A broken bone will mend – it will need a plaster cast to
ensure it mends straight. A cut finger will heal – the antiseptic prevents the
infection that would hinder this natural process.
Three weeks ago, having done all the pre-admission
stuff on Friday, I set about to do some jobs I wouldn’t be allowed to do for
six weeks. I mowed the lawn and then set about laying some more pavers between
our house and the neighbour’s fence. All was going well – laying them out,
cutting them to size when necessary and hammering them down hard through a
block of wood – until, as the light was dimming, I miscalculated and hit my
thumb! A proper job of it, split it open, blood
pouring out. At least I know my bones are good – no fractures. Alison swabbed
it with Betadine and fixed it as best she could,
but... surgery Monday? Better slip into the hospital for a more thorough job.
It’s healing well. Doctors, nurses and paramedics may well be involved in this
and other points of healing.
• The
miracle of God’s guidance to a cure. Dr McPheeters
quoted the time when the prophet Isaiah went to the sick King Hezekiah to tell him
he was going to die (2 Kings 20.1-11). As Isaiah was leaving the palace, he was
stopped by the Lord’s word to the king, “I have heard your prayer and seen your
tears: I will heal you”. Isaiah called for a poultice of figs. This was applied
to the king’s boil and he recovered. Sometimes the right diagnosis and course
of treatment is the sticking-point. We need to pray for doctors, specialists
and medical researchers for guidance to a cure.
• The
miracle of God’s grace. Paul prayed three times for healing from his
painful physical ailment. But the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for
you. My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
• The
miracle of the triumphant crossing. Jesus promises to all who put their
trust in him that the end of this life is the beginning of an eternity in his
presence and love. At the end we are released from the limitations, pains and
struggles of this life into the arms of God. We are amazed at the miracle of
the raising of Lazarus (John 11.38-44). Know something? Lazarus died again –
I’m quite sure of that. But I am equally sure that it was a triumphant
crossing.
Over twenty years ago when we
lived in
During my three months with
those parents, I could make them no promises – only my care and constant
expectant prayer to God for them and for their son. We certainly prayed for
God’s guidance for the medical team. The parents constantly needed God’s grace
for themselves in their persistent attention to their son right then – and if
he was restored to them with brain damage. Whatever treatment the medical world
could offer would at best co-operate with the healing processes God had
designed. And the triumphant crossing?We
don’t like to think about that one, and yet we had to. What if he just didn’t
pull through? At this point the family had no relationship with any church. As
a result of this profound experience, the mother was converted and became
actively involved in a local church.
In the healing ministry we are
not trying to manipulate the situation or to coerce God. Rather, we are
prayerfully surrounding people with God’s love and peace and expecting them to
receive a gift of God’s grace in whatever way he chooses to give it. The final
will of God is that people be united with him. So
physical death is the final healing that allows complete union
with God.
© Peter J. Blackburn, Ingham 12
September 2010,
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from
the New International Version, © International Bible Society, 1984.
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