Healing

Twice this week I've been confronted again with the idea of miraculous healing.  I remember wrestling with the Biblical accounts of healing versus my personal experience when Wes was much younger but I've rested in this place of slight disconnect for a while now.  I sit in this place where I know that God is fully capable of miraculously healing Wesley's brain, but in doubt of if that is truly His will.   My experience tells me that there are an abundance of blessings that have come from Wesley's life; that just as we all struggle living in this fallen world, Wesley's struggles are more visible than most; that he is no more in need of healing than you or I am just because his struggles are physically obvious to the world rather than hidden in his heart.  Yet the New Testament has story after story of miraculous healing of illness and disability.  The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the sick are healed.  There are stories that differ slightly from the norm (the man being told his sins are forgiven first and then receives physical healing in Mark 2, the child being healed from afar in John 4, Lazarus being raised from the dead in John 11) but ultimately all end in physical healing.  These examples continue into modern life through stories of cancer disappearing, vision being restored, and doctors being baffled (http://www.pccchurch.net/sermons?id=543831). The only Biblical example that I see regularly used of healing being denied is Paul referring to his "thorn in the flesh."  This account is so vague though that it has never reconciled the disconnect in my heart sufficiently.  So either Jesus healed every person who asked him for healing, or the Bible leaves out the accounts of those he said "No" to.  Why is that? My heart has always struggled to mesh Biblical accounts with the reality of my experience.  Why do we see so many people today who ask for healing and yet don't receive it while I can't find a single Biblical account of someone coming to Jesus for healing and Him telling them that there is a deeper purpose in their physical ailment and therefore refusing to heal them?  I don't believe that it is simply a lack of faith on the part of those asking today, a lack of "technique" in their prayers or requests, or a lack of the Holy Spirit living within them.

Last night I was having this discussion with a wonderful Godly friend of mine and had a few revelations.

Each and every person that Jesus healed or who has received miraculous healing from then until this very moment, ultimately died (or will die).  They may have been healed from whatever was currently ailing them, but the truth of our fallen world is that death is inescapable.  We live with this denialism working hard to avoid danger and exalt health, and yet we all face the same end.  Suffering is part of the human experience and a miraculous healing does not give a pass on that reality.  It may change what that suffering looks like, but it doesn't give an out on that part of our experience.

Perhaps (meaning I'm not claiming any theological expertise here just a theory that rings true in my heart) the Bible doesn't share a multitude of stories of people being denied miracles in order to bring focus and light to the ultimate example of God's Will being the continuation of suffering.

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” - Matthew 26:36-39 

Jesus was denied the Miracle. Jesus was not saved from his earthly suffering.  The will of the Father was not for the cup to pass from him.  His request for a miracle was met with "No" but that's not the end of the story.  Despite the inevitability of our earthly death, the true miracle is we no longer are bound by that.  How glorious to anxiously away the Miracle of our salvation from death and the promise of eternal life.

So why is it God's will for some to receive miraculous earthly healing and others to not?  I don't know.  But I do know that his own Son was denied a reprieve from suffering and so I will do my best to be willing to follow that example by seeking my will to conform to God's will rather than spinning my wheels trying to change God's will.  I will remember that Wesley will receive the ultimate miraculous healing in the eternal life that has been promised to those who believe and that gives me hope.