"Will God HEAL Me?"

Luke 10:1-20 Aug.29/04

The Ripe Harvest Field

Driving through the countryside, we see crops in various states of readiness for harvest. The wheat is either already off or very ripe. Over there's a field with straw ready to bale. Further along we see some mixed grain, perhaps with the oats a little green on top yet, though the barley underneath has already turned golden. White beans are turning yellow while the soys are still very lush and green. But why oh why are our neighbours already harvesting their sweet corn, when ours isn't near ripe yet??!

      Living in a rural area, one becomes quite adept at diagnosing the condition of the crops. But what if we had a gift to see people's hidden needs, hurts, and longings as "ripeness" for God's intervention? That fellow has a real chip on his shoulder -- must have a load of bitterness from somewhere. This younger man thinks he's really the cat's meow - listen to how self-focused his conversation is; good deal of pride there! And that middle-aged woman seems about ready to explode -- she comes across as so angry and hostile. Meanwhile that twentysomething guy seems unusually quiet and downcast -- probably depressed, in severe need of some caring and encouragement.

      And what if we not only could diagnose their unseen condition, but also knew how to help them resolve their problems, as only God can, if they would trust and cooperate? What if you had the solution for everyone's needs and hurts; you couldn't look at a person without instantly understanding them and knowing how to help them resolve their conflicts? There are so many -- where would you start? It would be overwhelming for just one person. Where do we begin? Let's get busy! Maybe you might be able to help more people if you could just clone yourself somehow.

      That's maybe how Jesus felt when he sent out 72 of His disciples. He said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." (Lk.10:2) People's hidden needs, difficulties, and longings predispose them (whether they're aware of it or not) to reaching out to a power outside themselves for help -- the power only God can fully provide. He is the "Lord of the harvest", He surveys the endless sea of human need with a view to responding to those who call to Him. It is to this healing mission that Christ calls His followers.

Healing: the Heart and Herald of Christian Ministry

You may have been under the impression that healing is meant to be the exclusive preserve of people in hospitals and clinics who wear white coats and stethoscopes. But healing is at the very heart of what our mission as Christians is all about. In Lk.10:3 Jesus says, "Go! I am sending you out..." He was multiplying His ministry by sending 36 team-pairs out into the villages he planned to eventually visit. "I am sending you" is literally the same verb we get "apostle" and "mission" from. Verses 4 and 7 underline the urgency of the task: the ministry teams were not to take extra money bags or sandals, move around from house to house in search of the poshest accommodations, or even pause to chat the day away on the road. So our ministry impact as believers today shouldn't be distracted by material "clutter" or becoming over-invested in the wrong relationships or incidentals.

      So what exactly was Jesus wanting them to do? First step in vv5f when they came into a house was to say, "Peace to this house." Jesus added, "If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you." (Luke 10:6) Now, this was the usual mid-eastern greeting, "Peace to this house", so at first glance it doesn't seem too worthy of note. But our Lord seems to underline the literal meaning by talking about the greeter's "peace" either resting on the host or returning to oneself. So He seems to be referring to real peace rather than just a formality.

      The Greek lexicon gives this meaning for "peace": on the big scale, "national tranquility, exemption from the rage and havoc of war"; between individuals, it implies "harmony, concord" -- good relations, getting along. On a personal level, it encompasses "security, safety, prosperity, felicity" - much more than just the absence of conflict; like the Hebrew 'shalom', it's a very pervasive sense of wellness, wholeness. In particular, the lexicon explains the peace of Christianity as "the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is." (repeat) That may not mean there's no pressure or everything's hunky-dory. The peace of the Christian is a tranquility that comes from being convinced God's in control, no matter how nutty life may be around us.

      Are we "shalomers"? What effect do we have on people? Does meeting us leave people MORE restored, or less, after our contact? If they're at all receptive, our "peace" (if genuine) will rest on them. Watchman Nee talked about washing people's feet in a spiritual sense -- they come away from talking to us refreshed.

      The core of our commission is found in vv8-9, "When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. [Well, so far that's not too difficult!] Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you.’" The verb 'heal' in the Greek has the same root as our word "therapy". This is much broader than just zapping them with instant physical perfect functioning. Cure them, heal them, be their therapist, serving their needs wherever they're at, in a way that mere human help on its own cannot provide. Moses as "therapon" was a servant or attendant discharging the duties committed to him by God. What's the real need in this situation? How does God want to use me to genuinely help this person walk toward physical/ emotional/ spiritual wholeness? "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few..."

      Healing the sick is part and parcel of telling folks, "The Kingdom of God is near you." The unexpected change toward wellness is the indisputable evidence of God's finger at work. Disciples are God's agents. Healing is to be associated with God's Kingdom - His presence, power, and control - not ourselves. Ministry is not something we do on our own human stream; it involves extending yourself in a risky way, allowing room for God to work. James 5(14,16) also talks about the Christian's healing ministry; we're to confess sins to one another, pray for people while anointing them with oil in the Lord's name...How's such a simple thing supposed to help them? Yet James maintains, "the Lord will raise him up." Our part is not anything so difficult or wonderful; we just carry out simple instructions and leave the rest up to God. No theatrics or hype; merely words spoken and touch shared on God's behalf.

      So this healing and telling are to be at the heart of Christian mission -- it's not some flakey sideline we leave to so-called faith-healers and Benny Hinns. Healing is at the heart of mission; it also heralds or announces the Lord's arrival on the scene. "the Kingdom of God is near" - at hand, it's upon us. When you suddenly look up and see a policeman right behind you in the rear-view mirror you may find yourself making some adjustments in your behaviour: his or her nearness represents law and the possibility of judgment. Nearness of God's regime should likely be understood in a more positive sense than that, but just as noteworthy. The ministry teams were the shock troops of the Good News invasion force. V16, "He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." The disciples are God's heralds, representatives; God Himself was noting people's response to them, and taking it personally. That the messengers understood this authorization is clear from v17 where they say "even the demons submit to us in your name". When the "twos" spoke, as far as the demons were concerned, it carried Jesus' own weight and force.

      Heralding was the main point of the mission. V11 reveals that even when the teams were not welcomed, when there were no healings and they were rejected to the point of shaking the dust of the town off their feet, they were still to announce: "Yet be sure of this: the Kingdom of God is near." Our job is not to make people like us, or to pressure them to grudgingly make some half-convincing noises about God -- many people won't welcome God-talk. Our job is to dare to raise the topic in a "good news" framework. This calls for tender hearts and thick skins. Perhaps our attitude, in love, should be this: "It doesn't matter what you think of US; it matters INFINITELY what you think of God."

The Unseen, SPIRITUAL Component of Healing

For centuries, the practice of medicine changed little. A lot of what passed for medicine was basically the hopeful application of unproven "home remedies". Surviving texts show the Egyptians used treatments, medicines, prayers, and spells. The Greeks studied plants and made recipes for medicines. Real progress began about AD 1500 when people like Leonardo da Vinci and a Belgian doctor Andreas Vesalius studied and wrote about how the human body works. Around 1600 the invention of the microscope opened up a whole new world of tiny organisms that were invisible before that. Medicine moved from quackery to the science lab. Since then, wonderful advances in technology have given us micro and laser surgery, heart and other organ transplants, chemo and radiation therapies. We praise God for such learning and insight into how we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Ps.139:14).

      Yet a considerable fraction of the health care industry must remain frustrating to doctors, nurses, and the most skilled secular therapists. The perceived problems of many people have no discernible physical basis. Psychology and the study of our body's chemical messengers have made us more aware now than ever how much our emotions and relationships affect our physical condition. People suffering from fear, worry, stress, anxiety, bitterness, and vengefulness may experience ulcers, heart trouble, and a predisposition to cancer. Misdirected outlets for people's longings produce another range of medical problems - eating disorders, obesity which affects one's breathing and heart; alcoholism; and smoking all take a considerable toll on our health system's resources. Unhealthy relationships and conflict lead to depression, suicide, or perhaps sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS. The pandemic in Africa is not so much a medical problem as a behaviour problem - sex isn't saved solely for a married couple. Physicians and other therapists are powerless to resolve these heart-issues: the best they can do is prescribe sedatives to mask the pain, or antibiotics to fight the damaging consequences.

      When Jesus sent out the 72 on their healing mission, the feedback He got back upon their return shows how important the spiritual element of healing is. V17 they exclaim, "Even the demons submit to us in Your name." Jesus doesn't correct them, but replies about seeing Satan fall from heaven, and that he's given them "authority to...overcome all the power of the enemy"; He adds, "Nothing will harm you." (Lk.10:19) It's not just about physical restoration, but spiritual cleansing as well.

      The NIV Study Bible lists 23 separate instances of healing miracles performed by our Lord. In 8 of these, there is a spiritual element clearly identified: the man possessed in a synagogue; the demon-possessed man among the tombs; the paralytic let down from the ceiling whose sins Jesus forgave before healing him physically; a man who was mute and possessed; a man blind, mute and possessed; the Canaanite woman's daughter; a possessed boy; and the "bent over" woman (Lk.4:33; 8:27; 5:18; Mt.9:32; 12:22; 15:22; Lk.9:42; 13:11). So in just over a third of Jesus' recorded healings, there was identifiable spiritual involvement. And what did Jesus usually say after healing someone? "Your faith has saved you / healed you" or "According to your faith will it be done to you." (eg Lk.7:50; 8:48; 18:42; Mt.9:29) The root problem is clearing out the barriers that block a person's faith-relationship to the Heavenly Father. Helping them discover a right orientation, depending fully on God in their life; then other things fall into place.

      This is underlined in James 5 as well: what is it that makes the sick person well? "The prayer offered in faith..." Notice how James links confession - which is essential for spiritual healing - to the physical healing. Many factors today vie to introduce harmful spiritual attachments in our lives or the lives of our offspring: the occult; astrology ad horoscopes; New Age elements in the media and popular movies; Transcendental Meditation and eastern religion, including seemingly innocuous physical fitness programs; and freemasonry. The wrong spirits seek to enter and control people's lives - and health - through many avenues.

Healing: its Purpose and Possibility

What is the purpose of remarkable supernatural healing? Its purpose is so that people repent and recognize the reality of God's Kingdom. V9, 'heal' and 'tell' are part of the same package. After the Ascension of Jesus to the Father's side, Mark 16(20) notes that "the Lord worked with them [the apostles] and confirmed His word by the signs that accompanied it." The signs or miracles are not given for their own sake but to point us to God's offer of covenant love in the Gospel. You can see this reflected in Jesus' observation in v13 that if the miracles had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, two notoriously wicked cities, "they would have repented long ago."

      Is healing still possible today? Why isn't everybody healed? Let's not forget natural healing which we tend to take for granted. God has designed our bodies in an amazing way to renew and repair themselves automatically; our immune system is a vital example of this. But then there are the tough cases where it seems our body can't win on its own. The New Testament directs believers to act as if healing is very possible. James 5(14f), "Is any one of you sick?...the Lord will raise him up." Paul writes to the church at Rome (Romans 8:11), "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." So pray as if healing is always possible.

      However the reality is that God doesn't heal everybody. He's not a vending machine where you put in your prayer and get out your healing. Jesus did not heal all the sick people of His time; for example, He healed just one of the "great number" of disabled people that were gathered around the pool at Bethesda (Jn.5:3). Even spiritual giants get sick and die. Elisha was one of the greatest miracle-workers in the Old Testament, but an illness led to his death (2Kings 13:14). A classic example is Paul's "thorn in the flesh" in 2Cor.12(7-10), what he calls a "messenger of Satan" sent to "torment" him after the wonderful revelations about heaven he'd had. Three times Paul pleaded with the Lord to take it away. (So it's not wrong to ask more than once!) Instead of healing and relied, Paul was given extra grace and strength in order to cope.

      Even if believers aren't healed in this life, we are in the next. Jesus' glorified body after the Resurrection is a foretaste of what awaits those who die believing in Him. Paul wrote (1Cor.15:51-53), "We will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet...the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality."

Doctor's Faith provides Peace in Crisis

Dr Ben Carson is a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore. An article in the January/04 Decision magazine points out that Dr Carson has received dozens of honours and citations of merit, besides authoring neurosurgical publications and books. He was one of the members on a team that not long ago attempted to separate young girl twins from Iran. Ben Carson grew up in Detroit and Boston, right in the middle of the tenements. There was "never money for anything". At age 8 Ben decided he wanted to follow Jesus. But the real change came a few years later. He didn't always pick up sharp blades for positive purposes. He recalls, "When I was 14, I tried to stab another youngster. My knife blade struck his belt buckle and broke. I locked myself in the bathroom and thought about that. That day I started reading the Book of Proverbs, and I prayed a lot. The Lord took my anger away from me, and I also began to gather insight into who God is and into the incredible power one could have from Him."

      Even with the stress and pressure of a neurosurgeon's life, Dr Carson has developed the discipline to focus on God each day. This attitude carries on throughout his working hours, so he's conscious of being a witness. He says, "I start out every day with my own personal devotional time of praying, reading the Bible and contemplating. I just try to keep God on my mind in everything I do. I tell myself, "You are a Christian, and you represent Christ." This means everything that comes out of my mouth and every action I do must be affirming and positive to people. I try to keep it that way no matter what is going on and no matter what anyone is doing."

      What happens when the doctor himself needs healing? Recently Carson was diagnosed with high-grade prostate cancer. When an antibiotic didn't relieve his symptoms, specialists checked his PSA level and found it elevated. The biopsy showed he had a very high-grade, aggressive cancer. He actually received the news while he was in the operating room. He recalls, "I put it out of my mind during the operation, but while I was driving home that night, it really started to hit me -- I've got cancer; I could die! I started thinking about my family and what impact that would have on them. As it turns out, I had a radical prostatectomy done, and it all worked out beautifully. We caught it in time, and I am cured. The Lord is good, that's all I can say. I kept telling everyone that God is too wise to make a mistake. If it's time for me to go, that's fine. He knows best, and I am OK with that. I had always wondered how I would react to such news, and I was pleasantly surprised by how peaceful I was."

      Peace -- that's what Jesus wants us to bring to experience and share with others, like the greeting of the 72 on their mission. Peace that's founded on faith, knowing God can do anything, including heal the hurting. Ben Carson's favourite Bible story is that of Joseph. He notes, "Joseph made the best of every situation and recognized that God is in control. If you recognize that, as I did, many years ago, you'll say, 'My Father owns the universe! He has the most power, the most money, the most knowledge, and He loves me! How could you be in better shape than that?" Let's pray.