“Get
Up and Walk!” Faith and Healing
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the April 23, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
“After
Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we
drive it out?” He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.” Mark
9:28-29, NIV
Perhaps some of the most marked differences between the
present time and the time of Jesus and the early church as portrayed in the
gospels and Acts are the accounts of miraculous healings. According to Matthew,
Jesus went about healing all who came to Him wherever He went.[i] Given such prolific
miraculous healing, there may have been entire towns and villages without
illness after Jesus passed through. But such healings were not limited to
Jesus. When He sent out the seventy, they returned with stories of miraculous
power over demons during their ministries.[ii] Those miracles did not
end with Jesus death, resurrection and ascension. Peter was endowed with the ongoing
ability to bring healing to others, so much so that they were healed if only
his shadow fell on them.[iii] These stories sound
incredible to us today, because we do not see people walking through the
streets of our cities and instantly healing people of their diseases. But why
is that? What is different about then
and now? There is no dearth of people needing healing. Are there no followers
of Jesus to heal them?
To be sure there are those who travel about claiming to
be healers and who do invoke the name of Jesus,-but if they truly have this
power, why do they not visit the hospitals and nursing homes and reveal their proclaimed
power where the need is greatest? Barring that, why do they not walk the
streets of our cities healing people as Jesus did? Instead the “healings” are
often part of a staged production where they control what goes on and when,
including controlling who has access to the “healer.” Jesus’ ministry was not
like that, instead He encouraged others to approach Him, with many of His
miracles occurring spontaneously in settings where He did not dictate what was
to take place. For example the woman who was healed after touching the hem of
his garment appears to have been unanticipated in her approach, though Jesus
detected her presence during the healing.[iv] Perhaps these
self-proclaimed healers are of another spirit. Jesus said that there would be
those who would do miraculous things in His name but are not known to Him.[v] However, even though this
was the case even in His day. He told His disciples to leave those alone who
were doing this.[vi]
Perhaps this was because it is too difficult for us to ferret out the motives
of the heart. God will one day sort these things out though, so we need not
fret.[vii]
When I consider the question of why there do not seem to
be the healings today that there were back then, the subject hits very close to
home. My first wife was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis after we were married
for five years. This is a seriously debilitating disease that took her from a
normal, healthy woman, through being able to walk with the assistance of a
cane, then a walker, a wheelchair, and finally landed her in a hospital bed. As
the disease slowly destroyed her nervous system and she lost control of her body
bit by bit, we did all in our power to fight the disease to no avail.
Charlatans came out of the woodwork proclaiming that they had for sale a sure
cure for her condition. Bee venom, colloidal silver, aloe vera, special teas
and myriad other “miracle cures” were touted, often by those who were making
money selling them. However, as we tried various supposed cures, we found that
they either had no effect or made her worse. None made her better. We finally
decided to tell these well-intentioned individuals if they would front the cost
of the treatment they were pitching for the first month, if we noticed an improvement,
we would pick up the cost after that. It was amazing how quickly those pitches
stopped once it was their money on the line and not ours. Some seem to prey
upon the desperate to line their pockets and sadly are adept at feigning
concern when there is money to be made. To his credit though, there was one
dentist who believed that mercury in her fillings was contributing to her
problem. At his expense he replaced all of her fillings with ceramic which was
no small expense. But again, in spite of his good intentions, the procedure had
no effect on her Multiple Sclerosis.
On a more biblical level, we did follow the counsel given
in the book of James.[viii] Not only did we request
intercessory prayer on my wife’s behalf, we also brought in the elders of the
church to anoint her and have special prayer for her. This also did not result
in healing. She claimed she had greater peace after the anointing, but this did
not manifest itself in any physical way. Instead she continued to deteriorate
and eventually died twenty-five years after she was diagnosed, the disease
having progressed high enough on her body to take away her ability to swallow
and breathe properly. This left me wondering, as it has for so many others in
similar circumstances, why does Jesus not heal people now as He did back then?
While my faith has not gone shipwreck over this, for many it has been a titanic
struggle to understand why god does not intervene and many are the individuals
who have indeed wrecked their vessels on the rocky shoals of doubt after
witnessing the loss of a loved one whom they believe God had the power to save.
To make matters worse, there are far too many souls doing the Devil’s work in pointing
out to such struggling believers that their lack of faith is what killed the
suffering person. Had their faith only been sufficient the person would not be
dead, but alive and well. This is cruel, but I understand it. They are simply
trying to reconcile what they don’t understand to deal with their own doubts. Perhaps
they are even attempting to frame the problem in the light of Jesus’ words in
Matthew, chapter seventeen.[ix] They are struggling to believe,
they have seen what has happened, but they, too, do not know how else to
explain it. Unfortunately, when they ascribe it to a lack of faith, they may be
guaranteeing that when they are faced with similar trials and fail to find
healing, they will have already condemned themselves for lacking faith and then
drift away from the sure Foundation that is their only hope for dealing with
suffering.
Lest we forget, even the ones who were close to Jesus,
His own disciples, found themselves unable to bring about healing at times.
When Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John, the
remaining disciples were approached by a father who sought healing for his son.
Being used to healing such cases, the disciples sought to heal him but were unsuccessful.
Perplexed, they waited for Jesus to return from the mount. During this time,
the religious teachers took opportunity to rail against the disciples for their
failure, likely accusing them of false teaching. Upon arriving, Jesus rebuked
all present for their lack of faith and healed the boy. Later when his
disciples asked him why they failed to cast the demon out, Jesus emphasized the
need of prayer. Some Bibles, notably the King James Version, have added fasting
to the need for prayer. However, this may be an early corruption of the text
reflecting a growing emphasis upon works based faith that reached its pinnacle
in the Roman Catholic. That emphasis can be seen in its emphasis on the many penances
to work oneself out of the condemnation of sin. Fasting is not included in the original
text of the Sinaiticus Codex of the Fourth Century, CE. It may, however, be included
in a poorly preserved Fourth Century Papyrus known as Papyrus 45. Due to its
poor preservation the reading of the text is too uncertain to establish beyond
doubt, so most modern scholars go with the Sinaiticus reading as being the earliest
reading of the text. This coupled with the greater tendency of scribes to
elucidate by additions to the text as opposed to omitting something leads me to
believe those scholars are likely to be correct.
So where does this leave us in regards to the question
of why we do not find miraculous healings today in the same way as in Jesus’
time? I am afraid we may not have the answer to that until Jesus returns. I do
know that at Still Waters Ministry we maintain a prayer list where we pray
daily for those who have asked us to. Most often it is for healing or for
empowerment of a ministry. Sometimes it is to find a job or a new spouse.
Sometimes it is to pass a school exam. We try to follow up on the requests as
we are able. Most commonly, those who were looking for work found it. Perhaps this
was going to happen anyway. But what is intriguing is over the past few years
we have prayed for several dozen who have sought healing. Most have not
received it, but a few, perhaps half a dozen, have found healing. Now was that
just coincidence? I do not believe it was because of any special faith on the
part of those praying, else all would have been healed. Was it because of the
faith of those making the request? If so, why did we need to pray if our faith
played no part? Perhaps the best answer to that is because Jesus prayed, He
urged His followers to pray, and throughout the New Testament we are admonished
to pray and not give up. Maybe it is the very act of praying that can
eventually produce enough faith to make a difference.
When one is lost at sea, and indeed we all are
metaphorically, we may read the charts and determine there is an island several
hundred nautical miles away. We cannot see it, and even after several days of
rowing we may only find exhaustion, hunger, and thirst. We may be tempted to
doubt the chart or feel that it is impossible to reach the island, but if we
keep rowing in the direction the chart tells us, we will eventually tumble onto
the shore that will save us. Having done that, our faith will be greater should
we find ourselves again in similar circumstances. Perhaps that is how faith
grows. If we keep praying, following the direction in the Bible, we may find
our faith growing to a level where we experience God’s intervention in ways we
never thought possible. Perhaps that is the secret that we not give up even
when we think everything tells us we should.
