We are coming to that part of Jesus’ story where we see his ministry gathering steam. Everywhere he goes he draws crowds – sometimes so many, he has to be creative about where to stand so he can be heard and not mobbed. He has also come to the point of organizing his growing community of disciples; in the passage immediately before this week’s, he spends the night on a mountain in prayer and chooses twelve men to be his closest companions. Now he comes down and enters the fray once more.
He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases…
People came from far and wide to see Jesus, Jews and Gentiles alike. They came both to hear him, and to be healed by him. Hearing and healing – such similar words, yet distinct activities which we don’t associate together. But often Jesus spoke healing upon people. He didn’t always touch, and he rarely prayed; he just pronounced healing.
Maybe they also found healing in his teaching. He proclaimed the nearness of God, and God’s power to deliver them from captivity of every kind, to poverty, power, demons, disease. No doubt hearing him awakened their faith, and made them more receptive to his word of healing and release. It’s no accident that every time Jesus sends his disciples out in mission he commands them to “proclaim the Gospel and heal the sick.” These two activities go hand in hand, the proclamation enabling the healing, the healing confirming the proclamation. A church that does not keep these ministries at equal strength undermines its effectiveness as an agent of the Good News.
I have always, even at seminary, sown the seeds of healing ministry, and I am eager to raise it up at my churches now. How is that ministry practiced at your church? Are there healing ministers equipped to pray with people during or after church services, or teams trained to offer prayer for more intense concerns? Is the healing ministry, where active, accompanied by proclamation of the Good News?
That proclamation need be no more than people’s stories of God’s healing power and love. Our stories are how the Gospel spreads. Our stories of God’s activities quickens the faith of others – just read any of a number of excellent books on Christian healing (email me if you want a list), and see how reading those stories emboldens you to invite God to release his healing stream in your life. (For several years now, I have retained the domain name for a website devoted to healing, which will include a repository of people’s stories of being healed and being agents for God’s healing of others. I invite your prayers for me to finally make that a reality soon!)
People still want to hear from Jesus, the Jesus we meet in the Gospels. And they want to be whole. If we make both his Word and his Power known in our ministries, they will come to hear, and to be healed.
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