Jesus Heals

Matthew 8:1-17

October 11, 2009

If you receive an email saying you can catch swine flu from tinned pork, delete it. It’s just spam.  Getting sick is on everyone’s mind.

Cousin Fergy called all worried. He said, “I had a glass of cheap port and woke up sneezing and aching. What should I do? I’m sure it’s the wine flu.”

Our kindergartens are teaching kids a new alphabet: 

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-1-N-1-L-M-N-O-P...

 No matter how you spell it any kind of sickness is horrible. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cold or cancer; sickness is an attack on our wellbeing. It can attack our bodies or minds or emotions – even whole societies. It can leave scars that last a lifetime. One hundred years ago a Cornell economist gave a lecture that the New York Times covered. They said he said – (Read article.)

 After the creation when God said that everything was good, sickness wasn’t part of the picture. Sickness came about because of sin and it will come to an end because of salvation. That’s part of Jesus’ mission. The end game is perfect heath. He gave us a taste of it when he was on earth.

  Matthew 8:1-17. 

  1When Jesus came down from the hill, large crowds followed him. 2 Then a man suffering from a dreaded skin disease came to him, knelt down before him, and said, “Sir, if you want to, you can make me clean.”

3 Jesus reached out and touched him. “I do want to,” he answered. “Be clean!” At once the man was healed of his disease. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “Listen! Don’t tell anyone, but go straight to the priest and let him examine you; then in order to prove to everyone that you are cured, offer the sacrifice that Moses ordered.”  

5 When Jesus entered Capernaum, a Roman officer met him and begged for help: 6 “Sir, my servant is sick in bed at home, unable to move and suffering terribly.” 

7 “I will go and make him well,” Jesus said. 

8 “Oh no, sir,” answered the officer. “I do not deserve to have you come into my house. Just give the order, and my servant will get well. 9 I, too, am a man under the authority of superior officers, and I have soldiers under me. I order this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes; and I order that one, ‘Come!’ and he comes; and I order my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” 

10 When Jesus heard this, he was surprised and said to the people following him, “I tell you, I have never found anyone in Israel with faith like this. 11 I assure you that many will come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of heaven. 12 But those who should be in the Kingdom will be thrown out into the darkness, where they will cry and gnash their teeth.” 

13 Then Jesus said to the officer, “Go home, and what you believe will be done for you.” And the officer’s servant was healed that very moment. 

14 Jesus went to Peter’s home, and there he saw Peter’s mother-in-law sick in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand; the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him. 

16 When evening came, people brought to Jesus many who had demons in them. Jesus drove out the evil spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. 17 He did this to make come true what the prophet Isaiah had said, “He himself took our sickness and carried away our diseases.” 

I title this section of Matthew: A Light Has Dawned. Something good was about to happen in Israel. The Messiah had come and they were seeing the first rays, 1. His teaching and 2. His healing.

  We learned about the first part in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the good news of the kingdom. Now we see a second aspect. The message of these three stories is this: Jesus can heal people!

 We’ve heard stories so often about Jesus giving site to the blind and making the lame to walk that it’s easy to take it for granted. Of course, Jesus healed people. What else is new?

 But why would he do it? Why take the time? Remember he has a lot to accomplish in less than three years. He has to put Judaism on the shelf and unwrap Christianity. He has to train up leaders for the new movement. He has to spawn a new and improved understanding of scripture. How will it help if there are more people able to see and more able to walk? It’s nice. It’s actually wonderful but I can’t see that it advances his cause very much.  Unless . . . unless he targets certain segments of the population. For example, he could use healing to get the opinion leaders and power elite behind him. He could work the rich and famous crowd and probably land some good funding – all to advance the kingdom, of course. But no: Jesus just heals regular people who need healing.  

  Second, we notice that not only can Jesus heal; he’s willing to heal. Does that amaze you? It should. There’s absolutely no reason why God should go out of his way to heal people who have sinned against him. No reason . . . except one. He has a forgiving and loving nature. 

 Jesus healed expecting nothing in return. Who knows how many people he healed. Hundreds? Thousands? However many it was, it wasn’t enough to turn the tide against the crucifixion. He knew it before he healed people. He wasn’t buying votes. He was just healing. Just making people whole.

 Some people get the notion that Jesus doesn’t heal because he isn’t willing to heal them. They don’t deserve it. Or they’re being punished. Or God doesn’t love them or notice them. Or God answers some people’s prayers but not theirs. But none of those are ever true. Jesus is always willing to heal.

 So then the big question is, why doesn’t he? That is a very tough question. But first you have to believe that he’s always willing to heal you before you can progress at all toward an answer. The reason is that the answer requires the same faith that it takes to believe that Jesus is always willing to heal. Romans 8:28 is as close as we will probably come to an answer.

  The third thing we learn from this passage is that you don’t have to be somebody to be healed. Look at the first three healings Matthew reports. They are the last three people People Magazine would expect the Messiah to heal.

 The first guy Jesus healed was a leper. He was pretty much the bottom the barrel socially, an outcast. He couldn’t worship in the temple and he had to live in isolation. 

 The second man who came to Jesus was a Gentile. That was bad enough but he was also a Roman soldier – one of their oppressors, a bad guy.

 The third person Jesus healed was a woman a nobody’s nobody. Women had few rights outside the meager ones they had in their homes. They were not very high on the totem pole.

On that particular night Jesus healed all the sick (1). That’s the true meaning of inclusive. Not that every belief system or opinion is legitimate, but that Jesus heals anyone without discriminating for any reason. 

It’s fitting that is this section on healing Jesus says that those who don’t seek his healing will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (12). Hell is the opposite of health.

 What do we do with this information? We have all these people going to Jesus to get healed and he heals them. They don’t have connections. They don’t have status or power or money. They just want to get healed.

 So here’s how I want us to apply this scripture reading to us: 

Fact 1: We all need healed in someway and it may not be physical. We may need healed of a bad attitude, or a bad habit, or a bad relationship.

Fact 2: We all tend to take certain things in our lives as a given even if they’re bad. We say, “That’s just the way I am.” Or we say, “I know I shouldn’t’ but I’m not hurting anyone.”

Fact 3: In some cases we’ve never asked for Jesus’ help or healing.

Fact 4: We should.

Fact 5: We will. 

 
Youth Message

Love doesn’t pick and choose.

Does your mom ask you what you want in your lunch? Did you decide what you were going to wear to church? Do you get to choose whom to invite to your birthday party? Do you get to choose your own hobbies? Do you get to choose your own friends?

 We have a lot of choices, but one choice we don’t have is who we are going to love. We can’t say, “I’m going to love this one but not that one.” Do you know why?

Because God tells us to love everyone?

John 13:34 – Love one another.

Matthew 5:43 – Love your neighbor.

Matthew 5:44 - Love your enemies.

 That’s just about everyone. And we have God’s example. John 3:16 says that God loved the whole world not just a part of it. God’s love is very big.

 So that means we shouldn’t choose whom we are going to love. We should love everyone.