Healing

Honest question: why aren't we healing each other? No, really, why are we not speaking life into one another and healing each other?

When Jesus sent His disciples out in pairs of two, He gave them the power and authority to heal all kinds of diseases, as well as the power to cast out demons. We're told only briefly the extent to which they did this, but we know that when they came back to Jesus at the designated time, they were jazzed up about all the amazing, beautiful, healing works they had been able to do in His name.

In the early chapters of Acts, we're told about Peter and John going to the Temple, the way that Peter and John had always gone to the Temple. And we're told about a paralyzed man who was at the Temple, the way that he was always at the Temple. The disciples came upon the man at the Beautiful Gate, the same gate where everyone always came upon the man, who was always begging for money. 

He was begging for money so frequently that he'd completely lost his sight for actual human beings. We know because it took a special plea from Peter for the man to even look up at him; he just wanted, and expected, a few little coins, enough to make it until the next Sabbath. Peter had to stop, speak to the man, instruct him to look up, wait for the man to get it and make eye contact. Just imagine a man so burdened by his brokenness that his shoulders are slumped, his eyes locked to the ground, his self-worth and self-respect battered by the storms of this world. It takes a lot to get a man like that to look up. It does. 

And then, Peter and John do the most unexpected thing. They tell the man, who they have just begged to look up at them, who they have just waited on to make eye contact, that they don't have any money to give him. Not a cent. Not a penny.

And then, they tell him something better: get up and walk. 

It's this beautiful moment, right? It's this incredibly beautiful moment where this man first reconnects with something human, both inside of himself and outside of himself, and then he finds himself on the receiving end of the healing power of Christ, God-in-flesh...Something Human. 

And then we...we walk right by each other. We walk right by each other on our way into the Temple. Pretending we don't see the man. Praying he doesn't see us. Walking right by his crumpled flesh as we go to worship God-made-flesh, Jesus Christ Himself, all while pretending that there's nothing that we, or our God, can do for this man.

Maybe it's good that the broken men and women that we walk right past don't look up at us any more. Maybe then they won't know how ashamed of ourselves we ought to be.

Because God gave us this incredible ability, in the power of His name, to heal one another. He gave us the power to make each other whole. He gave us the authority to say to one another, "Walk!" And we're not doing it. We're just not doing it.

They're right by the gate, right at the doorstep, right on the threshold of coming into worship with us, and we're not doing it. We're not healing them so that they can come.

I don't know about you, but I want to walk into worship with the wounded. I want to walk in with the paralyzed man right by my side. I want to walk in talking with the deaf man, who just minutes before couldn't hear me. I want to walk in with the blind man asking questions about what all the stained glass and tattered Bibles mean. I want to walk in with the demon-possessed, who shouts now in his own voice, Jesus! Son of God! I want to walk in with the whole.

That's what Jesus is about, isn't it? God-made-flesh so that our flesh could be somehow restored, somehow redeemed. God-made-flesh so that our flesh could be healed. Something Human about God because there is something so beautifully human about us in His very image. And it's not just Jesus. It's what His disciples were about, too. 

And we...claim to be disciples.

For the love of God, then, why are we not healing each other?