Week 3: Jesus The Healer
Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-43, Luke 8:40-56
“God, why won’t you heal me?”
A question we’ve maybe asked ourselves or a question we’ve heard people ask in our discipleship groups. A question that many of us can’t answer. These stories show us that God can heal, but may leave us wondering why He doesn’t all the time.
I don’t have an answer. But I feel the weight of that - lately I’ve been asking some of that healing myself. I get cold sores. They are gross, really painful, and extremely dangerous to infants. In April of this year, my husband and I will be welcoming our daughter into the world, and I sit up thinking about how careful I will have to be. I won’t be able to always give her kisses or let her drink out of my water bottle or touch my face. And now that may seem silly, but it's the thing that keeps me up. And yet no healing. Doesn’t God want my daughter safe?
I don’t know what God has in store for my daughter or for me, but I want to bring all those feelings from wrestling with God into reading this story again.
Did you notice that the woman with bleeding, the man in the tombs, and the man at the pool had all been afflicted for YEARS? We can easily see these stories with awe at the power of God’s healing (and we should), but it is not an immediate healing for those people. Nor was it for Jarius’ daughter, who actually met death. They all suffered. A lot.
Because we live in such an instant world, we believe that God’s healing should be the same. “God heal me right now, I know you can!” But Church, how often do we forget that God is doing a much deeper and greater healing in us?
Suffering and pain are promised - Jesus Himself endures such a life. And yet in the pain and suffering, the work of the Lord is there. “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). Don’t let the question, “God, why won’t you heal me?” keep us from seeing the healing that God is bringing through the suffering and waiting.
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). The promised healing is coming. We will be whole, and all affliction and ailments will be gone, just like my cold sores. But for now, let us look for the healing inside us that Jesus is bringing today and cling to the healing promised one day for us all.
