For several weeks the parents watched anxiously as doctors did their work. Finally, after an operation, the boy recovered and is now back on the football field.
We relax and say it is normal. The doctors were just doing their job. The little guy was healed. No big deal. Let’s move on. But what a wonderful thing!
A boy with a life in front of him but faced by a life-threatening condition is cured by the knowledge and skill of doctors! I doubt if this was possible 100 years ago or maybe even 50? Modern medicine really is astonishing.
Jesus cured many people in his time and his friends who continued his work did the same. Even the shadow of Peter falling on people as he passed by was enough to heal them. “People came crowding in bringing their sick and those tormented by unclean spirits and all of them were cured” (Acts 5:16).
But then it comes to an abrupt stop. After the initial weeks and months we don’t hear of crowds being healed. Paul cured a few with his handkerchief (Acts 19:12) but healing was no longer the sign it was in the primitive church.
Faith had to be built on something else. “You believe, Thomas, because you have seen me. Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.” Healing often led to faith.
In the bible we hear of the Syrian Naaman and the Roman centurion believing because of cures (2 Kings 5:15, John 4:53) but Paul was much more interested in the long shadow of Abraham reaching down to his time. He was “our father in faith” (Rom.4) and he performed no miracles.
The truth is that faith itself is the great miracle. I had an argument with my doctor once when he saw me much improved. “It was your faith that cured you,” he said. “No, I said it was your skill.” In fact, we were both right. Healing is no longer a divine activity alone as it was in the days of the early church. We have grown up and people now also share in the healing.
The person of faith holds that “whoever labours to penetrate the secrets of reality with a humble and steady mind, is, even unawares, being led by the hand of God” (GS 36). The “secrets of reality” cover medicine and any other human activity. There is a melding of the two – the human and the divine. That is what the incarnation is all about. “I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God gave the growth” (I Cor.3:6).
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis