Grace and Healing

Do I actually want to be healed, or do I just want the version of healing I can control?

The man by the pool has been sick for thirty-eight years and Jesus asks him a question that sounds almost rude. His answer is not yes; it is an explanation of why the pool never works for him. Bartimaeus, blind by the road, shouted for mercy and threw off his cloak when Jesus called.

After these things, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, there is a pool, which is called in Hebrew, “Bethesda”, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, or paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel went down at certain times into the pool and stirred up the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. A certain man was there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been sick for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Arise, take up your mat, and walk.” Immediately, the man was made well, and took up his mat and walked. Now that day was a Sabbath.

John 5:1–9

They came to Jericho. As he went out from Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the road. When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, you son of David, have mercy on me!” Many rebuked him, that he should be quiet, but he cried out much more, “You son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him.” They called the blind man, saying to him, “Cheer up! Get up. He is calling you!” He, casting away his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “Rabboni, that I may see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go your way. Your faith has made you well.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the way.

Mark 10:46–52

Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him Yahweh had given victory to Syria; he was also a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. The Syrians had gone out in bands, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little girl, and she waited on Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “I wish that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would heal him of his leprosy.” Someone went in and told his lord, saying, “The girl who is from the land of Israel said this.” The king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” He departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of clothing. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, “Now when this letter has come to you, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leprosy.” When the king of Israel had read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends to me to heal a man of his leprosy? But please consider and see how he seeks a quarrel against me.” It was so, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariots, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall come again to you, and you shall be clean.” But Naaman was angry, and went away and said, “Behold, I thought, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of Yahweh his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leper.’ Aren’t Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. His servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had asked you do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? How much rather then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” Then went he down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

2 Kings 5:1–14

Why is it so much easier to hide what I am carrying than to open it up to anyone?

We learn early to put the unacceptable parts of ourselves into a bag and keep it invisible, and after enough years the bag is heavier than we are. David writes about a silence that wore his body out and about bones that wasted away while he kept quiet.

When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin to you. I didn’t hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to Yahweh, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah.

Psalms 32:3–5

He who conceals his sins doesn’t prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

Proverbs 28:13

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.

James 5:16

Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves. They heard Yahweh God’s voice walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden. Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself.”

Genesis 3:7–10

What did my healing cost someone else?

The man walks out of the pool healed and the leaders are after Jesus for doing it on the Sabbath, so the joy of one man becomes the trouble of another. Isaiah says it in a sentence: we wander off and the wounds land on him.

The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.”

John 5:15–17

Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:4–6

When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Free him, and let him go.” Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him. But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done. The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, “What are we doing? For this man does many signs. If we leave him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is advantageous for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” Now he didn’t say this of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day forward they took counsel that they might put him to death.

John 11:43–53

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness. You were healed by his wounds.

1 Peter 2:24