Several times it appears as if Jesus didn’t heal at the first request. Here are a few examples:
The paralyzed man is forgiven but not healed. Jesus has turned away from him to address the Pharisee’s. That had to be a long couple of minutes for the paralyzed man who was expecting to be healed, but seeming has lost Jesus’ attention. Then there is the synagogue ruler whose child had died. Here it says the child was dead to begin with, but in another place we see that the child died while Jesus was en route. Healing is deferred for a time, and for a long couple of hours it looks like death has won. I also noticed that the blind men called out to Jesus and He didn’t respond. In fact, instead of turning to heal them He went into a house…and they followed him in. Because of their persistence Jesus heals them, but it didn’t happen the first time they cried out. I mention all three of these cases to remind myself that healing isn’t always instantaneous, even when in the presence of Jesus like it was for the woman with the bleeding problem. Sometimes we have to follow, have faith and keep asking until the Master agrees to heal. I[m not sure why Jesus didn’t respond immediately, but I know there is a reason. His delay in responding seems to parallel that of the unrighteous judge in Luke 18, where Jesus is encouraging us to “keep asking”.
The paralyzed man is forgiven but not healed. Jesus has turned away from him to address the Pharisee’s. That had to be a long couple of minutes for the paralyzed man who was expecting to be healed, but seeming has lost Jesus’ attention. Then there is the synagogue ruler whose child had died. Here it says the child was dead to begin with, but in another place we see that the child died while Jesus was en route. Healing is deferred for a time, and for a long couple of hours it looks like death has won. I also noticed that the blind men called out to Jesus and He didn’t respond. In fact, instead of turning to heal them He went into a house…and they followed him in. Because of their persistence Jesus heals them, but it didn’t happen the first time they cried out. I mention all three of these cases to remind myself that healing isn’t always instantaneous, even when in the presence of Jesus like it was for the woman with the bleeding problem. Sometimes we have to follow, have faith and keep asking until the Master agrees to heal. I[m not sure why Jesus didn’t respond immediately, but I know there is a reason. His delay in responding seems to parallel that of the unrighteous judge in Luke 18, where Jesus is encouraging us to “keep asking”.
Jumping back to verse 8: there it is in black and white “they praised God for giving humans such authority” We might respond by saying “Oh, but they didn’t realize Jesus wasn’t human” to which I respond “Oh yes He was”. Jesus was a model, and example of what humans can aspire to be. Whatever Jesus was able to do in human form we should be able to do as well. Does that sound heretical? It’s not. In fact Jesus himself told the disciples several times that they would do “greater things” than He did, and that “everything He learned from the Father ” He had made known to them. The real question is “why can’t we?” Clearly Jesus meant for us to “go and make disciples” and gave us both authority and a pattern to follow. He told us that signs and wonders would follow those who served Him and remained obedient. Something got lost as the mission and the message has been handed down over the centuries. I don’t want to say that “everyone who prays gets healed” because I don’t think that’s the case…but I do think far less people are being healed than should be. We are medicating people who are demon possessed, as if that’s the answer. Reference back to the man possessed by the legion of demons for my thoughts on that.
The old wine in new wineskins. Two examples are given. In one example the new shrinks and tears away from the old, ruining what is was supposed to fix. In the other the new expands and the old doesn’t, ruining what was supposed to be aged wine. In both cases, trying to mix the old and the new create a situation that creates loss, because the old is fixed and the new is more mobile. Is this a reference to the Old and New Testaments? The OT is fixed and rigid and cannot contain the NT idea of Jesus being the sacrifice for sins. In the OT a sheep is a sheep and a goat bears the guilt as it is sacrificed. In the NT, a person is both the sheep and the goat…and the sacrifice. When you pour that idea into the OT, it explodes. The rigid law cannot contain such an idea.
Summary: Jesus traveled the countryside healing every sort of illness, disease and casting out demons. All of this was to prove His authority to do so as the one and only Son of God. The power that He operated in was the Holy Spirit, who was upon Him “without limit”. That Spirit made Him aware of His identity beyond the earth, in human form Jesus became aware of His identity before the world began as God, through the power of the Holy Spirit. You and I will never assume that identity, because we aren’t God. But, we do have a spiritual identity to assume, and the Holy Spirit can and will reveal it to us if we allow Him to do so. Whatever our identity in heaven, we know that we are children of God, and endowed with the power of God to do the same sort of things here on earth that Jesus did, as necessary to accomplish our mission of making disciples who make disciples. This chapter provides some insight as to how we should behave, and what the results should be as we share the Gospel, the Good News.
Serving on,
PR