Today we look at a healing event recorded by Luke. Reading the gospels, especially Luke, we find different healing events, few are the same, most are different, which tells us something of his desire to communicate, that Jesus healed different people in different ways depending on differing circumstances: an only child, a paralysed man brought by friends, a demonised man in the synagogue, another in a wilderness, a child of a mother who was not Jewish, a mother-in-law at home with a fever, a servant at a distance; these are examples of Jesus’ healing ministry for us to take note of and learn from, that He heals at distance, He heals regardless of faith background or race; on one occasion he spat on the ground made a paste and smeared it on a man’s eyes; another, he used his spittle to touch a man’s tongue and he was loosed from being dumb.
In today’s example, there were ten lepers; they were separated from the community as leprosy was thought infectious, so were outcasts; they gathered to, and supported, one another; the story records their cries for mercy “Lord have pity on us”; Jesus gave them a command to obey – to show themselves to the priest to prove they were healed – a requirement of Levitical law from Leviticus 14:2.
They went, they were healed as they ran; one only, a Samaritan, came back to say thank you. Gratitude. Why didn’t the other nine? Maybe they thought that because they were Jews, it was a right, whereas this man was a Samaritan.
The marginalised – these lepers - got healed physically, but only one got saved spiritually – he came back and thanked Jesus, and as a consequence met Him face to face, had that intimate encounter; lots of people have a prayer answered, but never come close to Jesus and enter into all that’s possible by knowing Him. Why are so many people afraid of Jesus? Are they afraid they might have their faults pointed out/ Are they embarrassed to admit they know Him? Jesus said to him, “Your faith has made you well” or “healed you”.
Luke emphasises salvation is for everyone; when you read chapter 15, the lost sheep, coin and son, it’s about being lost and found – each lost for a different reason, but being found caused much joy in heaven; earlier the parable of the good Samaritan showed that God’s grace and kindness was not confined to the Jews; here a Samaritan gets healed and is the only one to show gratitude – why – because he realises that grace and mercy reaches to the whole world. Luke, the only non-Jewish author in the Bible, emphasises Jesus is for EVERYONE.
If Jesus healed people when on earth, from a wide range of conditions we read, and if the early church through the Acts of the Apostles, also authored by Luke records healings and miracles, does Jesus heal people of illnesses today, as then? If the answer is yes, are there conditions to fulfil to enter into an encounter with Jesus today in which His healing power is imparted, and are there testimonies from those who have had experienced it?
It is Yes of course. That people are healed of sickness, disease, and other conditions by being prayed for by other Christians is true. I have seen others healed of conditions that later were medically verified; veracity in healing ministry is important – Jesus told these lepers to go to the priest for him to check them out that they had been healed. There’s no integrity in claiming someone’s healed from a known medically diagnosed condition without them being checked out; however, there are cases where someone exhibits symptoms that point to a particular condition, but later after prayer, symptoms have disappeared or changed, and the original diagnosis is proved to be incorrect.
Is that a healing miracle? One person with a known powerful healing ministry said, “If someone comes to me with some symptoms, I pray for them and their symptoms disappear, I have to ask, is that healing? We can’t say it is, but we know the symptoms have gone.” On the other hand, when praying for someone, it’s important to listen to the Holy Spirit. One person I know was praying for a lady with a back pain; as they waited on God, the friend was prompted to ask the person with the back pain, “What’s the relationship with your mother like?” This prompted a conversation with the lady, who admitted it was not good; after some talking, she forgave her mother.
At this point the pain in her back disappeared. Can unforgiveness be related to physical illness? Yes. The scriptures are very clear about forgiveness: if you want to be forgiven, you have to forgive. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgiveness is conditional of it being passed on. You can’t receive it if you don’t give it away. So much illness is caused through relationship breakdown today – emotionally traumatised children when parents split up; young people damaged through early physical intimacy who often end up with depression, anger, and emotional pain that they try to deaden through other means. Adults carrying resentment, harshness, others broken by the sins of others. This is the real world Jesus enters to heal, save, forgive, make whole, set free from darkness, it’s not easy and pain-free: it’s messy, but Jesus makes the wounded whole, He comes to bring release for the captives from deep abandonment, from fear and who carry a great sense of loss.
We may not be lepers today, but most of us have things for which we need the healing power of Jesus, or otherwise we continue to carry stuff we don’t need to. Jesus can deliver us from the power that some of our stuff has had over us; to free us to blossom and flourish instead of trying to grow with a slab of spiritual concrete over us, which distorts and hinders our growth into wholeness.
The lepers asked for mercy; they got far more than that. They got grace – receiving freely from the Saviour of the world what they didn’t deserve, and mercy – withholding from them what they DID deserve.
What part does faith play in healing? Jesus said to the one who returned, “Your faith has made you well.” This verse could be translated “your faith has saved you.” Salvation and wholeness lie close together in meaning; “Sozo” means – to save, rescue, to preserve safe and unharmed, to cure, heal, restore to health, to deliver from, to set free from, to be in the way of salvation. Faith is the means by which God’s presence, power and peace is turned into action and encounter. Sometimes people healed in the New Testament were healed by the faith of the one healing them – Jesus himself; or of friends such as the paralysed man brought on a stretcher to Jesus “and when He saw THEIR faith, He turned to the man.” Sometimes of the person, and faith is itself a gift from the Holy Spirit.
The Samaritan got more than he expected – not only healing for the body, but salvation for the soul because he came back and said thank you to the Saviour of the world. Being thankful is important. A doctor friend always says, “I treat, Jesus heals.” Giving thanks to God is important: giving thanks to people, in all circumstances where it is merited, is an encouraging thing to do. We should go out of our way to be this sort of encourager.
Sometimes Jesus surprises us in His healing work – I’ve known some folk for whom I’ve prayed at a distance or sometimes quietly laying a hand on them, and later have discovered they’ve had a powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit.
“Rise, and go, your faith has saved you/made you well.”
