Article April 29, 2013 Issue

The deeper lessons of healing

Lois Degler

During the course of his ministry, Jesus healed blindness and leprosy, raised the dead, fed the hungry, and saved sinners. His healing acts brought hope to many in his time, and also to those of us reading the Bible record now.

But why did Jesus heal? One reason is certainly because of his love and compassion for those in need. His healings seem to say: “There is nothing that cannot be healed. No one that cannot be saved.” Yet, renewing health and restoring life, while certainly very important, were not the only reasons for Jesus’ healing work. The healings were also, in a way, attention-getters, authority for his messages about God and about divine reality. As the Bible points out, the healings performed by Jesus and the disciples “confirm[ed] the word with signs following” (Mark 16:20).

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy wrote about Jesus, “His mission was to reveal the Science of celestial being, to prove what God is and what He does for man” (p. 26). Jesus knew God was his Father, and our Father as well, and he wanted everyone to know this. He said that his healing works were really God’s work, and that God had sent him to save the world. He illustrated God’s love in his teaching. For example, in the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd, God, goes after the lost sheep until he finds it and then “lays it on his shoulders and rejoices” (Luke 15:5, New Revised Standard Version). In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus affirms that there is a heavenly kingdom, and that God is a powerful and loving Father, who meets our needs, forgives sins, and delivers us from evil. His healings were confirmation that God’s love is “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10, NRSV).