The Simplicity of Healing in Christianity

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Part VII of our series on Healing and Comforting

We talked in the last post about whether healing is a spiritual gift, reserved for only a few Christians, or a Work of Mercy to which all are called.  I place it in the latter category not least because Jesus commands all his disciples (not just a few) to heal the sick in Matthew 10:8.

Wherever you land on that debate, however, I think we can all agree that healing should never to be practiced as mysterious magic. No incantations, spells, potions, dances, amulets, or wild-eyed crazy healer types.

For the Christian, healing is always about simple trust in God and heartfelt petition rooted in the knowledge that God wants to heal. He created human beings to host him, not sin, illness, or death. So check out the simplicity of James’ instructions (in 5:13-16) on how we’re supposed to heal. The script is really simple, memorizable even:

13Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him,anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore,confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. (James 5:13-16)

Think about how simple, trusting, and God-focused this is; especially in contrast to other religions where healing is pretty complicated! Iowa State University Religious Studies Professor Hector Avalos offers this typical example, from the religion of ancient Assyria for the cure of malaria. In order to perform the healing ritual, a person needed:

    • a figurine of the daughter of Anu (the primary sky god)
    • a figurine of Namtar (a minor god of the underworld)
    • a figurine of Latarak (a little-known figure)
    • a figurine of Death
    • a substitute figurine made of clay
    • a substitute figurine made of wax
    • 15 drinking tubes of silver for Gula (goddess of healing) and Bēletsēri (mistress of the desert)
    • 7 twigs of tamarisk
    • 7 bottles of wine
    • 7 bottles of beer
    • 7 bottles of milk
    • 7 bottles of honey

The figurines of the deities, which were probably assembled in the presence of the patient or in some sacred area, represent the supernatural beings that needed to be appeased. The foods were probably intended as offerings to gain the favor of these deities. Prayers to the deities were probably combined with medical treatments applied to the patient, and the entire ritual might have lasted hours or even been spread over a few days.

What’s the message in that kind of religion? “The healer is very mysterious and powerful; we’d best pay him a lot of money. And the personal effort to overcome illness is significant and depends heavily upon our actions.”

That’s fundamentally different than in Christianity, where the message is, “God is very, very good. He heals when the church (represented by the elders) come together to pray for the sick person and anoint him or her with oil.” And in Matthew 10:8, Jesus directs us explicitly not to charge for that house call: “Freely you have received,” he says, “freely give.” Note how healing is mirroring into the world what we first received from him.

So the direction the Apostle James gives is simple. But in this case, simple does not mean shallow—far from it! In fact, James shares something in that Scripture passage that has been, at best, forgotten by modern Christians and, at worst, badly mangled. Take a look at 5:16:

16Therefore,confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.

Here’s the wrong way to read that verse (i.e., how Christians mangle it if they remember it at all these days): “You are sick because you sinned.”

Want to know the right way?  I guess you’ll have to tune in to the next post!

In the meantime, share your thoughts on the right way to read this verse.

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Is Healing Reserved for a Few Christians or Should All Practice It?

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Part VI of our series on Healing and Comforting

Healing is unique among all the Works of Mercy in that it is the only one that shows up in Paul’s list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11:

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

So is healing a spiritual gift given just to some Christians but not to others? Or is it a Work of Mercy commended for all Christians? 

Jesus seems to point to the latter understanding in Matthew 10:8, where he says to all of his assembled disciples:

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.

Trying to find the answer to this question has been going on throughout church history. Some Christians have said that healing gifts were given only to the apostles or the early church. Others have said that such gifts remain operative today in the specialized ministry of a few select healers (it seems they all go on to become famous TV evangelists!). Still others say that all Christians should be able to heal but can’t because they lack faith.

But a review of the breadth of Scripture and the witness of church history indicates that Christianity has never understood healing to be restricted to miraculous moments or manifestations. Sometimes God casts out illness through healing gifts, as Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 12. But sometimes God blesses some of the most mundane means.

Even washing soiled bedsheets qualifies.

Bottom line: healing is something all Christians do as a way of mirroring into the world the healing love we personally received from God. The method or means may vary (sometimes miraculous, sometimes mundane), but the call is consistent: All Christians heal because God heals all Christians.

If that phrase surprises you, remember this: salvation is the fundamental healing we experience, and it is common to all Christians. As we discovered last week, to the Lord, sin, death, and illness are all connected at the root.  We’ll talk more about that next week, but for now share your thoughts:

Is healing a specific gift given only to a few Christians or a Work of Mercy and, therefore, something all Christians should be engaged in?

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The One Who Heals Suffers the Most

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Part V of our series on Healing and Comforting

Why doesn’t God heal everyone?  That’s the question we asked in our last post.  The answer is one part surprising and one part challenging: sometimes we bear the image of God best when we bear illness.

Paul calls this “sharing in the fellowship of his sufferings” in Philippians 3:10-11:

“…that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”  (emphasis mine)

Healing will come, in this life or the next.

But we have to realize that healing is not the only way we are able to bear the image of God to the world.  Our illness and death can do that as well.

In God’s Kingdom, healing, illness, and death are a lot more closely connected than we think. The healer heals at great personal cost and risk in each of the three dimensions: physical (body), social (soul), and religious (spirit).

It is not coincidental that in the parable Jesus tells of the Good Samaritan and the wounded man, the Good Samaritan says (and this is made emphatic in the Greek), “I, not the man, will pay.”

Biblically, the healer always suffers the most.

As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Christ bears the illness and sin in himself. Society, religion, and the power of sickness and death were arrayed against Jesus—all sought to cast him out; none would host him.

So hear the proclamation of Isaiah 53:5! Christ freed us from our involuntary hosting of sin and illness and death…by hosting these enemies of humanity in himself, on the Cross:

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

How will you participate in this Work of Mercy differently, now?

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