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
• 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,
In Luke 4 we also read about
Jesus’ visit to
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?
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
Matthew
9 records four
healing miracles. We are considering just two of them this morning.
Jesus has just returned to
“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.
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
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
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
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 “
• 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.
© Peter J. Blackburn,
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture
quotations are from the New International Version, © International Bible
Society, 1984.
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