Reflection #3:  God’s Healing

God’s Healing

Task: The texts below describe stories of healing as part of Jesus’ ministry. Note the differences in the attitude of heart the people exhibited. Discuss your thoughts and the lessons you learned.

Healing at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-7)

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw 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?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

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. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” (John 5:1-7)

Healing at the Mountainside (Matthew 15:29–31)

Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel (Matthew 15:29–31).

Healing the Man with Leprosy (Matthew 8:1-4)                          

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them”(Matthew 8:1-4).

Discussion

When Jesus entered the courts of the pool of Bethesda He did not heal everyone who was present at that moment. He could have easily done that. Out of the many sick individuals around the pool, He approached and healed only one! Did He not have compassion on all of them? The issue here is not a lack of compassion; no other heart bled for us with greater compassion than His. Jesus delivered the Father’s will for that one suffering man at that particular time. Only that man, at the pool, on that day, was ready to receive his healing. God, who sees into that man's heart, saw his readiness and ministered to him by healing him. 

When the Lord heals, He restores the health of the whole person. The man's physical healing was seen immediately by many, but there was a much greater healing accomplished in his heart that was seen only by Jesus. For this reason, after the healing, Jesus found the man at the Temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5:14). What is the “worst” that could happen to the man? The man knew what Jesus meant because he knew the Word of God. 

The soul who sins is the one who will die. (Ezekiel 18:4b) 

Jesus warned the man of the detrimental consequences of sin in his life. As it was then with the ill man at the Bethesda pool, so it is with us now. God alone renders the timing, the form, and the delivery of God’s healing provision. We must be ready, spiritually cleansed, for His healing.

In the time of my favor, I will answer you, and in the day of salvation, I will help you. (Isaiah 49:8)

In contrast to the healing at the Bethesda pool are the healings on the mountainside and the leper. While Jesus healed only one man at the pool, Scripture tells us that He healed everyone brought to Him on the mountainside (Matthew 4:24). The number of healings is not the only difference in these two cases but in the attitudes of the heart as well. The first was an attitude of waiting and wailing; the second was an attitude of actively seeking and finding. God deals with us differently when we approach Him wholeheartedly with our problems. The Lord desires to make His will known to His children and waits for us to acknowledge His sovereignty. Approaching God is an important step that puts us in the correct position to lay our requests before Him. Like the father who did not run after his prodigal son but waited for him, so is God waiting with outstretched arms for us, His children, to return and acknowledge Him. Throughout the Scripture, God repeatedly calls for closeness with Him. God told Moses, upon giving the Law, “Come up to Me on the mountain” (Exodus 24:12; Deuteronomy 10:1). God repeatedly called the Israelites, through the Prophets, to make peace with Him. Jesus instructed us to be active.  

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. (Matthew 7:7-8) 

Our coming to God is a conscious choice based on our free will. It shows the readiness of the mind and heart to seek God first. In the spiritual realm, such choice places us as receivers of God’s grace and mercy. It displays obedience to the first commandment to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). 

According to Jeremiah 29:11-14, our attitude should be:          

1. “You will call upon me and come and pray to me,”(v.12)                                               2. “and I will listen to you” (v.12)                                                                                        

3. The third point is a specific condition to the first two. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you” (v. 13-14) 

Question: Tell us your story of healing. How does it compare with the ill man at Bethesda pool, the leper, and the people who followed Jesus at the mountainside?

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