Healing In the Bible

"I am the LORD who heals you" -- Exodus 15:26 (NRSV)

Anyone who's paying any attention while reading the Gospel accounts of Jesus has a hard time avoiding the impression that Jesus healed people of physical illnesses. Not only did Jesus do it early and often (so often that during His life, His healings were seen as a trademark of His work), but He is reported in Scripture to have given his followers the ability to do the same, and more. As to the church actually following through on that promise, see Acts 3:1-16.

From the point of view of the Bible as a whole, healing happens whenever harm or damage is made whole. This broader view of healing needs to be kept in mind when you think Christianly about politics, society, interchurch relations, decision-making methods, and questions of racism, sexism, or classism. Yet, the Bible usually means something more specific and earthy than that when it speaks of healing. It tells the story of specific people being healed of their specific physical illnesses. If we over-emphasize the broader vision, we can quickly lose sight of the specific usage. Thus, in this chapter I'll stick to the primary meaning of healing, that of physical restoration of health, and leave inner healing to another chapter.

Jesus did his healings in the context of Isaiah 53:5 (according to Matt 8:17). That's an atonement passage. It's tempting to simplistically link all healing with the Lord's Supper, and treat healing as a fait accomplice, as if it's already there for the asking. But the Eucharist is about Jesus' presence, which is not only an 'already', but a 'not-yet'. The body and blood 'already' were shed to save us, and believers in Christ are 'already' a part of the Kingdom of God, but we await his 'not-yet' return ( 1 Corinthians 11:26). That's why there isn't perfect healing in this life, any more than there is perfect living. The Christian faith does not deny brokenness. It denies that brokenness has the last word. Healing is a foretaste of a Kingdom that has not yet come in its fullness.

"God heals the sicknesses and the griefs by making the sicknesses and the griefs his suffering and his grief. In the image of the crucified God the sick and dying can see themselves, because in them the crucified God recognizes himself." ----- Jürgen Moltmann, *The Spirit of Life*, p.191. Emphasis is in the original.

The early church understood this, and not just in the era of the Apostles. Throughout the first two centuries, wherever Christian witness went, physical healing went too. It would perhaps be helpful to mention a saint or two who healed, but the fact is, faith healings may well be the most common miracle ascribed to those the Roman Catholic Church honors as saints, famed and forgotten saints alike. While it became much less common after the time of Constantine, it did not nearly vanish like most other miraculous acts and signs. Instead, nearly every era has some Christians who touched and healed people, right through to our own times. It goes hand-in-hand with a deep spirituality and an even deeper love of God and other people -- when the Spirit is there, healing happens !

Healing is a sign of the day when all illness and unease is healed. It is one of the acts of that kingdom asserting itself, the beginning of the healing process for all of creation. (Only a beginning. It is no substitute for the completed Kingdom. The healed will eventually die, just as the raised Lazarus died again. So getting part of that wholeness reminds us of what it is to have the whole thing someday.) In healing prayer and work, we can all be a part of God's holistic overall work of healing. Christians don't worship health. We don't call on God to remove all suffering from life. What we do is ask God to fulfill the divine purposes, and trust God to give us health where it helps and suffering where that is needed. This goes well beyond just 'spiritual' healing.