“And so Jesus went throughout Galilee. He taught in the synagogues. He preached the good news of the Kingdom, and He healed people, ridding their bodies of sickness and disease.” (Matthew 4:23 VOICE)
We all want to be healthy, after all, our health affects the quality of our lives. We all need to be healthy. I’m writing this post at a time when I’ve been fighting a very miserable cold for the past two weeks. I am certainly not feeling well, and I don’t like it. That’s just a cold, and yes it is an annoyance but it made me think about those people in Jesus’ day who were experiencing all sorts of very ill health – some for years and years, and about His healing miracles.
Throughout the Bible there’s irrefutable evidence that the Lord has always desired for all people to be in good health. According to Scripture, we know that Jesus performed many healing miracles; but was His only purpose for doing so, a desire for the people of the day to be healthy, or was there another purpose for healing? Today I’d like to give you something to ponder.
In Jesus’ time it’s clear that sickness and disease were rampant. I imagine that several factors accounted for that, including unsanitary living conditions, poverty, and a lack of advancement in medical science. Among the list of diseases, blindness was very prominent and we are told of one significant incidence of blindness from birth where the sole purpose of this healing was to display the works of God (John 9:1-3). I’d like to suggest that there was yet still another purpose for Jesus’ healing miracles.
You see, in those days the sick were considered impure and there were very stringent rules and restrictions pertaining to purity which were enforced by the priests in an effort to maintain social standing, economic and religious status, to the point where holiness was equated with purity. Everything was classified according to its degree of purity thereby creating rigid social boundaries.
All sick people were outcasts – untouchable nobodies who were debarred from partaking in every aspect of human society. This exile also applied to worship at the Temple – the impure were not allowed to enter the Temple area. But Jesus had a different vision, He defied the rules when He went about “healing every disease and sickness among the people”.
Yes, Jesus had another purpose for healing. He did not want anyone excluded from religious life. Healing made all those people pure again, thereby restoring their status and bringing them out of exile and back into society. Jesus’ healing miracles were a bold and daring statement to the religious order: anyone and everyone can be a part of the Kingdom of God. As Luke 10:9 says,
“…heal anyone who is sick, and tell them, ‘God’s Kingdom is right on your doorstep!’”
Amen†
Another Purpose for Healing…Something to Ponder Shelley Johnson 13-10-2016
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