Scripture Reading: Mark 1:40-45, Matthew 8:14-15, Luke 14:1-4, Luke 22:50-51, John 4:46-54
A skin disease, healed. A fever, touched away. A lost ear, quickly replaced. Seemingly chance encounters became life-altering miracles in Jesus’ presence. Power was oozing out of Him, and no one could stop it if they tried, though some certainly did their best.
Sometimes I wonder if, for Jesus, performing miracles was like breathing. Every few moments, my chest expands and contracts, taking in oxygen, transforming it, and putting it out in the world again as a different substance. Jesus inhaled and exhaled, and the blind could see and the lame could walk and the near-dead became fully alive. Lungs breathe because they’re lungs. Jesus heals because He’s the Healer.
So why did He reach out His hand to touch the leper? Why did He touch Peter’s mother-in-law to free her body of fever? Why did He touch the high priest’s servant’s ear rather than simply order it to reattach? We’ve seen how He can speak a storm to stillness or fill a net with fish, all without so much as lifting a finger. But time and time again in the Gospels, Jesus chooses to heal by touch. Why is that?
The story of the leper in Mark 1 gives us a clue. Read again with me the exchange:
Then a man with a serious skin disease came to Him and, on his knees, begged Him: “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”
Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out His hand and touched him. “I am willing,” He told him. “Be made clean.” Immediately the disease left him, and he was healed (Mark 1:40-43).
Do you see it? It’s love. Jesus used touch to heal because of love.
It is the kind of love that looks at an untouchable beggar and is moved with compassion. The kind of love that, with a resounding yes, is willing to enter into our sickness and grief. The kind of love that brims with mercy, that would lay down self and die for literally everyone other than Himself. This is the kind of love only Christ can give. This is the love with which Jesus touched and healed those He came to save.
To be in Christ’s presence is to be changed (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). Sometimes that meant physically. Sometimes—many times—Jesus saw fit to make illness and injury disappear like that storm on the Galilean sea. And we have to assume, for reasons we’ll never understand this side of glory, that sometimes He didn’t. Sometimes He doesn’t. But His presence is no less glorious, no less affecting, no less healing if the wound or ailment remains. Love is who He is. Healing is what He does. It’s how and when He heals that’s the question; and that, like so many other things, we must leave to Him (Isaiah 55:8-9).
But here’s what we do know: He loves us. He loves us with a love that cannot be comprehended by our limited, yet remarkable, brains, with a love that cannot be conquered by anyone or anything, including death itself. Our illness and injury—be it physical, mental, or emotional—is utterly incapable of keeping us from the Savior’s love. This is His promise to us (Romans 8:35-39).
We beg, “If you’re willing, make me clean.” And He always, always answers, “I am willing. Be made clean.”
In an environment where physical healing is often misunderstood as one believer having more power or belief than another, this was a great reminder (and teaching point) for me. Jesus heals on his time, his watch, his reasons, but his love remains. The touching part was also revealing, that we as his disciples don’t touch to heal because that gives us more power (which is often believed by the christians around me) but rather we do it out of love. Thanks!
Thank you for another reminder how our ways and our thoughts are not His ways and thoughts. Usually.I add the usually because we have the mind of Christ. But it’s not a snap. Comes through seeking.
Wooow. This is great. Thank you for sharing. Here lately I have been so overwhelmed by how much He really does love us and this topped the cake. Sometimes it’s just the little things that mean so much.
Here’s a part I really loved from the website I shared above, just in case someone wants to read it but doesn’t have the time to read it all:
“As I said, the man had it fixed in his mind that Jesus had to accompany him back to Capernaum to heal his son. Often, we have a preconceived idea of how the Lord must work to solve our crisis. Jesus could have gone with the man and healed the boy in his presence. He did this with Jairus’ daughter when He raised her from the dead (Luke 8:41-56). That would have been more dramatic, but it wouldn’t have developed the man’s faith.
So, instead, Jesus puts the man in a curious dilemma: The man said, “Come!” but Jesus said, “Go; your son lives.” By doing this, Jesus forced the man to believe without a sign. Either he had to doubt the word of the One in whom he had placed all of his hopes for his son’s recovery, or he had to believe Him and go. So Jesus very skillfully drew this man into a deeper level of faith: Faith in Christ’s promise or word.”
That IS really good. Wow. “Blessed is he who believes without seeing.” Thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much for sharing this additional information. I love how this part of The Word definitely is doing a “double duty.” Saving a life physically (the son) and spiritually (the man).
Wow so good- Thank you for sharing!
I felt the need to dig a little deeper into the passage in John 4 about Jesus healing the government official’s son.
I wanted to share a page I came across that really helped me to unpack this miracle and understand how it applies to my life:
https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-25-foxhole-faith-saving-faith-john-443-54
Definitely worth the read! :)
Really enjoyed this further reading, thank you so much for sharing Kristi!
Yes! This adds so much to the passage. Great post and additional website! Thank you to the author and to you for this additional insight, Kristi!
That was helpful! Thank you!
Loving this study. It is much appreciated!
This series has been so different from others you have done. Each day I am touched by God in a new way, opening my heart to my Savior in a depth I have not yet known. Thank you so much for these studies.
This is really what I needed to hear. I’ve been struggling with an untreatable and incurable genetic disorder for the last four years, and I just keep having to remind myself that Jesus is always with me, especially when I’m struggling.