Mark – The Issue of Healing
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Spirits, fever, leprosy, paralysis, all kinds of oppression and disease. Quite a bit of healing has already taken place in the first two chapters of Mark. But there’s an elephant in the room. Maybe the question on our minds isn’t really a theological one: Why didn’t Jesus heal everyone? Maybe it’s more, Why doesn’t Jesus heal everyone? Or more closely, Why doesn’t Jesus heal me? Maybe it’s helpful at the outset to say, I don’t know. Let’s not commit the sin of hubris by pretending that Jehovah is a simple input-output machine; get the input just right and receive your desired output.
JESUS DOES NOT HEAL EVERYONE
Let’s also establish that Jesus did not/does not heal everyone. There are people who will tell you that, if we could only muster enough faith, He is always willing to heal anyone who asks. Maybe this group implicitly believes that the character of God is at stake. What do you mean God isn’t able or isn’t loving enough to willingly heal everyone? The implication here is that whether we are healed or not rests not with God, but with us. If we are not healed, guess whose faith fell short?
In fact, Jesus did not/does not heal everyone. This is a reality of life. Faithful Christians routinely fall asleep with unanswered prayers. Paul writes of asking repeatedly for his suffering to be taken from him, and being denied (1 Cor. 12). There was no EMP of healing power everywhere Jesus went in His earthly ministry, which would have been easy enough for God to accomplish. We see Him refraining from going into town because the people thronged and clamored for healing (Mark 1:45). Not every paralytic in Capernaum had friends faithful enough to lower him down a hole in the roof. Not every ill person who might have believed that Jesus could heal them actually encountered Jesus. Circumstances and the sovereignty of God.
And yet, Scripture indicates a connection between faith and healing: our paralytic in Mark 2, the bleeding woman (Mark 5), blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10), the centurion of great faith (Matthew 8), the Canaanite mother of a demon-possessed girl (Matthew 15), the Samaritan leper (Luke 17), etc. To all of these, He said some variation of, “Go in peace. Your faith has made you well.” There are also examples of unconfessed sin leading to affliction – just ask King David (Psalm 32, 39). What do we make of all this?
TOTAL HEALING
This topic could become quite convoluted until we realize that Jesus came to do something far more loving than relieve us of our present suffering.
Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come. Mark 1:38.
Good works and miracles were components of this preaching, but notice that the healings were not the end game. The gospel of Mark commemorates the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry with, “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God” (Mark 1:14). The healings attested of a grace far greater – the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, the resurrection from the dead, and the Lord of the universe caring enough to transfer us into His own kingdom (Isaiah 29:18-21). Likewise, the endowment of faith, the spiritual eyes to believe such miracles as possible, signals the advent of His gospel amongst us – a herald of metamorphosis. Jesus came not merely to patch us, but to make us new.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE AFFLICTED
- By His grace, put your faith in Christ, who freed us from all condemnation (Romans 8:1; Acts 2: 24).
- Practice the normal Christian life. Pray for faith (Matthew 7:7-11; Mark 9:24; Heb. 4:16). Practice confession (James 5:16; 1 John 1:9). Ask for healing (James 5:14).
- Practice the presence of God and hold fast to His character (Psalm 46:1; Isaiah 40:11; Heb. 13:5-6).
- Practice the sufficiency of grace (2 Cor. 12:9). In all circumstances, it will hold firm.
- Seek the glory of God. His kingdom, His reign in the hearts of men and women, is the assurance that our suffering has meaning, that it will be redeemed and transformed into a crown of glory (2 Tim 1:12).
- Take hold of the peace that He has secured a complete and ultimate healing for you through His death and resurrection (John 14).
This is the statement of Dr. Kent Brantly, a missionary doctor who was stationed in Liberia with Samaritan’s Purse when the Ebola epidemic erupted in 2014. It echoes the heartbeat of countless saints before us.
[On] Wednesday, July 23, I woke up feeling under the weather, and then my life took an unexpected turn as I was diagnosed with Ebola Virus Disease. As I lay in my bed in Liberia for the following nine days, getting sicker and weaker each day, I prayed that God would help me to be faithful even in my illness, and I prayed that in my life or in my death, He would be glorified.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25
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