Matthew 8:1-17
Hands of Healing
I pray every week for those who are sick and ill. While I may not always remember to do so every day, the times that I do, I pray knowing and believing in the power of prayer. I have seen this come to fruition many times. I’ve heard stories from congregation members over my short tenure. It’s wonderful when we see firsthand how God can answer prayers. However, I can’t lie. It’s not always easy praying for those who are sick, especially those who seem close to death. For even in these dire circumstances, my prayer remains the same. I pray that the Lord would grant his healing hand upon them and restore them to full health. But I know that healing isn’t guaranteed. This is where the struggle comes in. I’ve never doubted that God could work miracles beyond our wildest imaginations. I’ve always believed that even these dire circumstances could turn around. For I’ve seen it happen in my own life. When I was in elementary, my mother was terminally ill. She had a pulmonary embolism that doctors told her she wouldn’t survive. They had given her only two weeks to live. And even in my little brain at the time, I may not have understood the severity of the circumstances, but I prayed in my own way that God would heal my mother. After discussion with her doctors, my mom opted to forgo a risky surgery and take her chances at home. Well, as many of you can figure out the end of the story by the fact you’ve met my mother in person, she not only didn’t die, but was completely healed after two weeks. It was nothing short of a miracle.
This week, we see the tender side of our Lord who deals with the sick and ill. Our Lord is the one who grants health and healing by his own hands both in regular and miraculous ways. Yet, lest illness makes us doubt, let us understand our Lord’s healing hand as we learn:
THE HAND OF THE LORD HAS REACHED OUT TO BRING HEALING!
I.
There’s no shortage of stories in Scripture about God healing people in miraculous ways. Many of these are debilitating illnesses, diseases, or infirmities of the body that even modern medicine couldn’t heal. Consider at first Naaman. He was a leper, which did far more harm than just the disease itself. Yet, Naaman receives hope from one of the most unlikely sources. A little girl from Israel who was taken away as a slave tells her master about the power of God to heal him. Thus, after a series of communications, Naaman is told through a servant of Elisha to wash in the Jordan river and be clean. And again, with urging, Naaman does so and is healed! Now, the amazing part of this story isn’t just that Naaman is healed; it’s that Naaman is a Syrian, that is, a Gentile, and even an enemy of Israel. But through his healing, God shows that he cares for all people. Or better yet, consider now the leper in the Gospel. We hear the leper ask Jesus directly, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,” Matthew 8:2. The leper is asking if Jesus cares enough for him to heal him. To which, Jesus responds, “I will; be clean,” Matthew 8:3. To say it simply, even between these two stories, we can see just how much Jesus cares for us that he would extend his hand to heal us.
Yet, then comes the issue I mentioned at the start. What happens when God decides not to heal us? If we have so many stories about Jesus, or the prophets, or the apostles healing people, then what does it mean when God says no, or when Jesus says, “I will not.” Does it suddenly mean that God doesn’t care? Well, of course not. For we have far more wrong with us than any illness or disease shows. Nor does it mean that God isn’t extending his healing hand toward us either. For even in our illness, Jesus is there standing next to us. He’s holding our hand, just as he held the hand of Peter’s mother-in-law (Matthew 8:15). He seeks to bring comfort and peace to us even in the midst of illness, sickness, or any disease. For no matter how many times we’re healed, due to our sinful flesh, we’re always bound to get sick again.
II.
I won’t stop praying for God to grant healing to all those in need. I won’t stop believing that God can and does heal by both regular and miraculous means. However, let us also come to know that God’s healing hand does far more than just heal our body. For he has stretched out his hand also to heal both body and soul. As Matthew quotes Isaiah at the end of our reading, “This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took our illnesses and bore our diseases,” Matthew 8:17 (cf. Isaiah 53:4). Jesus is our great physician. He’s more than able to heal our broken bodies, and cure our ailing soul. But in the end, the greatest medicine that Jesus can give us is forgiveness and faith. By our Lord’s forgiveness, he can mend our broken hearts. He can clean out the disease of sin from us. By faith, he can strengthen and restore our bodies as in our youth. For you see, the healing hand of God has stretched out toward us not to make us live forever in misery, but to live forever in paradise! Whenever we pray for healing, we pray also for the healing that comes only through the resurrection unto eternal life! There in eternity, God shall cure us of our diseases; he shall mend our bodies so that we’ll never be ill again.
This is our Lord’s compassion, to grant us healing according to his will in this life, but even more in the life to come. With the Centurion, we must realize that Jesus has authority over every disease, over sin, and even over death. For Jesus has stretched out his hands to us with his forgiveness. He places his hands upon us that we may be healed. Then, he bears our illness, he bears our disease and he takes them to the cross. Jesus suffers our fate, our illness, our disease of sin so that he may cure us both now and forevermore. As Jesus says to the centurion, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed,” Matthew 8:13. So too, Jesus tells us with his forgiveness. He tells us to go, fully believing that his forgiveness has gone out and done exactly what he said. He has healed us by his word, and so too shall that word call us forth from the grave, granting us new and eternal life!
Let us continue to pray for those who are sick and ill. Let us continue to believe that God desires our healing and health. But let us above all, see how God has stretched out his hands to comfort, to strengthen, and to forgive us that we may have the healing of the resurrection unto paradise. In Jesus’ name! Amen!