The Suffering Servant

Yet it was our sicknesses he carried; it was our diseases that weighed him down.... He was whipped, and we were healed. Isaiah 53:4-5 (NLT) All the spirits fled when he commanded them to leave; and he healed all the sick. Matthew 8:16-17 (NLT)

For the early disciples, healing of the sick was part and parcel of Jesus' teaching and ministry. Not only was the healing miraculous, it was authoritative. There were many miracle workers and healers in those days, but none had the authority that Jesus commanded. The disciples did not just marvel at the power that cast out demons and healed the sick; they were awestruck by the presence of a man who claimed dominion over heaven and earth. Much of what Jesus taught his disciples they did not understand at the time, but the sweeping sceptre of healing was quite obvious, and the attending talk of forgiveness of sin was nearly blasphemous. Fifty years later, when the first disciples recounted their precious walk with Jesus on earth to the children of faith facing severe persecution, they would remember vividly the commanding voice of the Lord's sacrificial lamb -- the suffering servant prophesied by Isaiah -- taking charge over the sin and sickness of the common people.



Today, nearly 2000 years after Jesus walked with his first disciples on earth, we are so acculturated in our commitment to scientific dogma that we understate the fundamental assumption of the scientific enterprise: science imposes the best available theories to explain the current collection of observed phenomena and known facts; but it cannot explain the unknown, or the unobserved, or the seemingly inexplicable phenomena we encounter in our common experience. It is well for the scientist to assume that future geniuses and divine serendipity will give rise to new theories that will in turn explain things that are un-explained for now; it is just as well for the Christian to assume that miracles continue to happen that defy our limited imagination and finite intellect demanding in us some measure of courageous faith and frivolous importunity.



We Christians who are physicians, after four years of rigorous medical training, would do well to pray fervently each and every time we lay our hands on our patients: pray for the power of the Most High to heal their diseases, and for the authority of the Almighty Judge to forgive their sin. This gift of mediation between the Lord and our patients is easily dispensed from our hands, yet unconscienably withheld for the most part by our spiritual timidity. Have we not dedicated ourselves to do our very best for our patients? Have we not promised ourselves not to withhold any good remedy that might prove effective to our patients? Have we not subscribed to the common practice of recommending a therapy when scientific experiments have demonstrated but a small advantage for its use? Why then are we so reluctant to wield our mighty sword of Christian faith over these human diseases?



For those of us Christians who believe in Jesus and are experienced in all things faithful in many different occasions in our own lives, we need no external proof for the power and effectiveness of our faith in healing. Scientific proof of such faith as ours is a contradiction in terms. Those who experiment in the relation of faith and health are laudable in their effort to demonstrate some mind/body connection in the realm of medical sciences. But we are dealing with our spiritual faith. Our faith does not yield to scientific proof or statistical manipulation. Our faith in Jesus is tautological, self-evident, internally valid. Our faith is in itself the proof and evidence, the self-fulfilling prophesy as it were. It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see. Hebrews 11:1-2 (NLT)



I believe in concentrating on our faith and not on our diseases, embracing the promise of his forgiveness and not the guilt of our sin, looking to him who heals us and not to ourselves who succumbed to sicknesses. I believe in miracles -- not only those brought about by modern science, not only those brought about by human love, not only those brought about by all manners of folk and adjunctive therapies, but more specifically miracles commanded by our Lord Jesus himself through the hands of his servants -- miracles of healing by virtue of the suffering servant who was whipped in order that we may be healed.



Let us pray: Lord Jesus, I believe in your healing ministry. Take my hands and make them instruments of healing, so that I may lay my hands on the sick and heal them of their sicknesses as well as their sin. Amen