To Heal or Not to Heal...

A minor dispute broke out yesterday morning at a local, weekly prayer gathering which I attend with religious regularity. It was triggered by a prayer offered up for a person suffering with an illness. In my usual fashion, I was somewhat preoccupied with my internal talk show ('Waynez Whirled' of which I am the host and the main guest), so I wasn't aware of the precise phrasing of the request. Apparently though, something was expressed that seemed to give God an 'out' in case he was not particularly in favor of performing a healing in the case of this particular person (it really bothers me to use both the adverb and the adjective form of the same word in a single sentence!) . Or, perhaps, as was subsequently expressed by one of the other Saints, the verbiage was more along the order of giving the pray-er an out should their faith or confidence in God's willingness to heal in a manner consistent with what we read in the Gospels was less than compelling.

The objection raised, in the form of an exhortation with 'all due respect' offered, is one with which I am well familiar. As a frequent guest speaker on 'Waynez Whirled' I have raised it myself on numerous occasions. It goes something like this: Why, when Jesus clearly expects that we "shall do greater works" than the ones he did, and that the laying on of hands should produce healing for those who believe (Mark 16:17-18), should we shy away from fully expecting that a complete healing should result from our faithful intervention on God's behalf toward the sick? Even though we believe, based on the overwhelming evidence presented in the New Testament, that the confirmation of the Good News that 'the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand' is the accompaniment of miraculous signs (the most obvious of which is physical healing), we struggle to reconcile our belief-system with our practice and experience. I believe there are two primary reasons for this.

The first is a survey of our present reality. Although we hear about miraculous healings on a fairly regular basis, very few of us have ever actually seen one first hand. We are mostly only familiar with them through second or third-hand (to be generous) anecdotal evidence, or partial or gradual improvements in the condition of some sick person whom we personally know that we proudly point to as evidence of our (or someone's) faith, being careful of course to verbally assign the glory to Whom it is due. Based on our firm belief that we have been commissioned by Jesus to carry on the mission which he began, to establish the Kingdom of Heaven of earth, it stands to reason that, in the absence of any real scriptural evidence that the gift of healing (or any of the charismatic gifts) were to cease upon the death of the last of the original apostles, that we should fully expect them to continue today. And to a large extent the church today firmly believes that to be true. But...when the subject of the supernatural character of God and his Kingdom comes up, most of us sheepishly admit that we seem to be lacking some key ingredient to our faith or knowledge that keeps us resigned to a reality that is mostly pretty mundane and constrained by the 'laws of nature'.

The second reason that we 'hold to a form of religion, but deny the power thereof' (OUCH!) is a little escape clause in the form of an interesting little explanation from the Apostle Paul about his 'thorn in the flesh'. Though we will never (on this side of eternity) know for sure the nature of Paul's troublesome condition, some scholars have offered an explanation that seems very plausible: that Paul had impaired vision possibly caused by cataracts resulting from the blinding light he experienced on the road to Damascus. Hence his comment in Galatians 4:15 that the Galatians would have given him their eyes if they could have, and also the evidence of his comment at the end of several of his epistles that the readers could verify the authenticity of his authorship by his over-sized signature (alluding to the fact he couldn't see what he was writing unless he made the letters remarkably huge). The only thing that casts possible doubt on this theory is that Paul describes this annoyance at one point as a 'messenger of Satan'. How could a buffeting from a mischievous specter produce a physical malady? Well, I personally think the most sensible explanation is that the 'buffeting' and the 'thorn'  are two different aspects of God's purpose to keep Paul's ego under wraps. The thorn was Paul's near-blindness and the buffeting was a 'shoulder buddy' whispering in Paul's ear something to the effect of "Hey, big shot, if you've got this faith thing dialed in so well, why ain't you healed yet...you big phoney?!" Nevertheless, if we believe, based on this one incident, that in any given scenario there may be a key piece of undisclosed evidence that would cause God to override his default disposition of compassion to heal, in favor of achieving some greater purpose, we will always have a reason to explain away our lack of faith as a lack of knowledge.

But, ironically, even those of us who protest most vociferously about the apparent lack of faith in the church concerning healing, and advocate most vehemently for the manifestation of the supernatural, aren't really seeing much more than wisps of evidence that could mostly be explained by an over-active imagination or mass-hallucinations. The restoration of withered limbs or the restoration of sight to the blind is only something we read about in a para-church organization's online newsletter or hear about in a corner somewhere over coffee. And so we mostly just don't bring the subject up. And we mostly pray "Lord, if it be your will...".

So where does all this cogitation leave us? Well for one thing, I think we correctly focus on how we can love our fellow human beings who suffer by using Jesus-with-skin-on natural methods. There is no question that LOVE trumps everything in God's economy. The supernatural can apparently become a stumbling block that actually dooms us to getting it grossly wrong. The pronouncement of Jesus over those who thought they did good by focusing on the supernatural in Matthew 7 is frightening: "I never knew you!" They got it decidedly wrong. And Paul warns us again in 1 Corinthians 13 that even good works, if motivated by anything but the love of God, are just kindling for the fire. Nothing will remain that isn't originated and sustained by God's love. We can keep God's commandments (at least outwardly) and apparently even do the works Jesus did and still be sons of Satan. It's not just what we do that is evidence of a genuine faith (James 2:17). It's whether we have been reborn by God's love...'recreated' into the image of the God who loved the world so much that he gave...EVERYTHING! And for that to happen requires nothing less than THE SUPERNATURAL!!!

""For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16 ESV

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." - 2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

"For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." - Galatians 6:15 ESV 

"If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." - John 15:7-10 ESV

BE A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST and...

"Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy." - 1 Corinthians 14:1 ESV