New Thoughts (11/14/09-11/15/09)
Having already treated on the question of whether these three passages are really parallels of one another, I will proceed on the basis of having answered that in the affirmative. This is not to say that I have reached some solid conclusion on the matter, only that the observations I intend to make here take this as a given. For, what strikes me more than anything is the way these three perspectives harmonize to show us a more complete picture of our Lord Jesus.
Before I get rolling, I will briefly note the fact that when Matthew speaks of Jesus healing, the term he uses could as easily be translated as meaning He served them. It is certainly reasonable to suppose that Jesus was performing miraculous healings on this occasion as He had on so many others. However, even if this be the case, I think we would do well to keep that sense of service in mind. We are inclined to put too much weight on the physical healing except something come to bring balance to our tendencies. If we will keep the idea of serving in mind whenever we contemplate divine healing, we would do well.
Indeed, the word we are considering lies at the root of our own word, therapy. Therapy, I would note, does not aim at destroying the disease, but rather at repairing the effects. Therapy cannot really accomplish its purpose until after that disease is destroyed. If there is some injury that has led to a broken bone, for instance, therapy must await the resetting of the bone. It is aimed at restoring muscle function that may have suffered during the period the bone was being healed. Therapy cannot cause the bones to be re-knit.
Likewise, when I had to deal with a collapsed lung years ago: therapy wasn’t going to convince that lung to re-inflate. Therapy wouldn’t fix the problem. However, after surgery had disturbed the musculature of the chest, and after lying abed for weeks while the real issue was addressed, therapy had a definite place in restoring range of motion, re-establishing the function of those muscles that had been disrupted, and completing the process of recovery. Was it healing? It was a part of healing. It was in service to healing. But, it could never be the whole of healing.
My point is simply that we are overly inclined to make healing miracles the point, and Jesus would never have it so. He healed. That is certain. It was well known by one and all that this was the case. Yet, healing wasn’t His purpose. It wasn’t even His habit. His habit, as Mark points out, was to teach, and His teaching was not about healing. He wasn’t presenting a seminar on how to convince God to act on your behalf. He wasn’t telling everybody that if they weren’t healed, it must be that their faith was too small, or that there was something intrinsically wrong with them. In fact, it’s pretty rare that you find Jesus speaking at all about healing. Healing wasn’t the point. Healing was just something He did, because health was something He saw the Father providing.
His habit and His primary interest, however, was to teach. Wherever crowds found Him, or even individuals, He would teach them. Whenever the opportunity arose to increase their understanding of God’s kingdom, Jesus was on it, pointing out the way that the things of everyday life demonstrated the rich goodness of God. It was a habit for Him. If He saw something in His surroundings that could serve to demonstrate a kingdom principle, He would point it out, and He would explain just what it demonstrated. It’s as if He couldn’t help Himself. He couldn’t. This was part and parcel of His purpose for this period of His life: to teach about the kingdom, to declare the good news that the kingdom wasn’t like folks had been taught. God was not all vengeful wrath, although there was plenty of vengeance in Him for sin. But, He was not keen to punish. He was keen to forgive. Only, forgiveness could not displace Justice. It must come in a way that left God wholly Himself, wholly true to His own character.
You know, for those who recognize their true circumstance, this is indeed the most marvelous, most incredible news. All is not lost! I am not beyond hope! I have not sunk so low that God cannot rescue. I have not wandered so far astray that He cannot set me back on course. Look! If He could pull Jonah off a ship that was far from where Jonah was supposed to be, and arrange aquatic transport to bring that one to his proper path, can I not trust that He can do what needs doing to draw me homeward? If He could take a man like Paul, who had made the destruction and death of Christians his primary objective, and make of him a primary apostle, a foundation of the Church, am I really to be thinking my own sins are beyond His capacity to deal with? No way!
On the other hand, if I have come to belief, I ought to have come to a place in my thinking that the things of this world are of less significance to me. Physical health, however much I might appreciate it, must be recognized as being one of the things of this world. Now, let me attempt to balance this out, for I am not about to promote a mindset that is so fully focused on the spiritual that it loses all connection with humanity. That way has been tried and found wanting. No, God does not insist that we denigrate all that is physical and pursue a life as purely spiritual in nature as can be. We need not try the ascetic’s approach of denying the body any more food than is absolutely required of it. God created this world, and He created it well. It is filled with good things that He has placed here for our use and yes, our enjoyment.
You know, we have that great first question of purpose in the Westminster Catechism: What is our purpose? To know God and to enjoy Him! How can we enjoy Him and reject all that is His creation? It makes no sense! However, enjoying that which He created is not cause to abuse those things. Anything pushed to excess is pretty well assured of becoming sinful. It was permissible and good to gather manna in the desert. It was sinful to gather more than was needed for the day, more than God had allowed. It is permissible and good, by God’s own text, to take a little wine. It is sinful to abuse the fruit of the vine, to become a drunkard and a sloth. It is good to observe the dictates of the Law, but it is sinful to push it so far that it becomes an idol. It is good to trust in God, knowing that it is He who as at work in you both to will and to work, but it is sinful to take that as a reason to stop trying altogether.
If, then, God has blessed us with a period of good physical health, this is nothing to be derisive of. It is nothing to take for granted, nor to be despised. If, on the other hand, God has determined that we shall endure a period of poor health, even a chronic condition which we can reasonably expect will persist unto death, we have no cause for complaint. That does not sit well with us. We are not inclined to rejoice in pain, nor should we. Pain was created by God for a purpose, a good purpose. It was created to serve as an indication to us that perhaps we ought not be doing whatever is causing us that pain. But, understand this: if God is good (and He is), and He works all things for good for those who are working in His purpose (which He does), then such conditions as we find ourselves in, we find ourselves in for our good. It may be for a season, it may be for a lifetime. It is hardly sinful to seek treatment for illness. It is, I suspect, sinful to insist that God must heal us. Perhaps I stress the point to firmly, but only because I see too many Christians around me stressing the matter of miraculous healing well beyond any Scriptural boundary.
With that, I really do want to turn my attention to the triune perspective we are given by these three accounts. Not surprisingly, we find each of the evangelists focused on the particular aspect of Jesus’ activities that resonated with them and with their purpose for writing. Matthew, as he is writing for a Jewish audience, and concerns himself largely with demonstrating the continuity of Torah in Jesus, shows the healings, because these are things that fulfill signs laid out in Scripture.
Mark, is taken with the habit Jesus had of teaching. Crowds came? Jesus taught. This was, to him, the most important aspect of what was happening. That shows throughout Mark’s account. He is not alone in noticing this, but he is more inclined to make this point. Jesus taught. In the synagogues, whenever opportunity arose, Jesus taught. When it seemed He should have been overwhelmed by the crowds, Jesus taught. Even when He had been trying to get away for a breather, and the crowds just wouldn’t quit, He came back to them and taught. Indeed, there is this note from earlier in the Galilean phase of ministry that really strikes me afresh today: Jesus had been out on the water, getting away for awhile, but there were the masses on shore. So, He went ashore (Mk 6:34), and is the part that really strikes me: He felt compassion for them, so He began to teach them. Now, normally when we read that passage, we associate the compassion with the cause: they were like sheep with no shepherd. But, wow! Connect that compassion with the result instead, and something truly shocking arises. He felt compassion, so He taught.
I have never noticed this connection before. I am far more inclined to associate the compassion with the healing. He saw their diseases, and compassion moved Him to heal them. But, that’s not the case. Compassion moved Him to teach them! What’s that well-worn adage? Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. How well that applies here! Heal a man and he lives for a few years more. Teach him of the kingdom, and he lives for a lifetime! Which does him more good?
It was compassion that moved Jesus to teach. Can I say the same thing? Is it concern for the eternal state of those who may read my words or hear me speak that leads me to make my thoughts known? This is the only proper motivation for teaching, just as the kingdom is, in the end, the only proper subject. If my teaching is not a matter of bringing folks to a more complete and more correct understanding of the God Who Is, then it can only be about showing off how much I have studied, and that is worthless in the extreme! If my teaching is all about how to be healthy, wealthy and wise in this life, I am being most cruel to those I teach. For, I have turned their attention away from eternity, and this to their great peril.
Woe to those who teach the children of God to consider health and wealth their rights! Woe to those who teach the children of God to demand comfort from this world and from their God! Woe to those who claim to represent Jesus but teach us to turn our eyes everywhere but upon Him.
Now, then: John… John, coming late to this business of writing about the ministry of Jesus, is far more concerned with making the meaning clear. Matthew has established continuity, and Mark the activity. Luke has done what he could for historical accuracy, such as it was measured in that time. John is coming to fill in the gaps. He notes the events that he recalls which the others neglected. But, more than that, he is not satisfied to simply relay the facts of those events. He is concerned with relaying the meaning, the purpose.
You see that here: Matthew has commented on the healing, and Mark on the teaching. John skips all that and moves to the results: Many believed. Nothing else was of any worth if folks didn’t come to belief. Heal as many as you like, but if there is no faith in the healed, then they are as dead after as they were before. Teach long and well, teach all the days of your life, but if those you teach do not believe in the Christ of which you teach, then whatever wisdom and knowledge they may have gleaned from you will leave them no better. They remain destined for destruction.
It is belief that matters in the end. Whether you come to belief in good health or bad, whether you come with strong mind or weak, it is belief that makes the difference. It is belief, being convinced by whatever means have convinced you, and trusting in that One you have believed, that opens the door to Life. Consider the life of Jesus, and you must see that this is the way He has organized His ministry. Yes, He heals. Yes, He teaches. But, always with an eye to the Purpose of faith believing. That faith is the ultimate good, and all else that constitutes ministry must serve that good.
Again, Jesus is manifest here in three different roles; that of Healer, that of Teacher, and that of Redeemer. Each roll ministers to a different aspect of man. As the Healer, He addresses the physical life of man. As the Teacher, He addresses the thought life. As the Redeemer, He addresses the spiritual life. What this shows is a ministry that is intent on preparing men to fulfill the Great Commandment: to love God with all your strength, all your mind and all your soul. He also demonstrates clearly that God loves all our strength, all our mind and all our soul. He wants all of us because He loves all of us.
Look yet again at those three aspects of ministry: healing, teaching and kingdom purpose. Notice the order in which I have listed them, for this is arranges them in order of increasing importance. Healing the body is not, whatever our feelings may tell us, as critical as informing the mind, and the knowledge given the informed mind is nowhere near as valuable as being clear on our purpose.
To gain a different perspective, you might view each of these as a refining of the one preceding. He heals, but specifically He heals the mind by teaching it Truth. He teaches, providing knowledge, but specifically He teaches knowledge of the good news of the kingdom. Matthew wraps this together neatly when he writes that Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in the synagogues, declaring the good news of the kingdom, and healing all sorts of disease and sickness (Mt 4:23). I notice that in this Matthew almost relegates the healing to an afterthought. The people treated it as the main attraction, but it wasn’t.
We are still battling that misconception in our own time. We have made healing the pinnacle when in fact it is little more than advertising. Why else do we have healing ministries and healing services? Everything is made subservient to healing. There is teaching, but it is about healing. There is purpose, but the purpose is healing. There is God, or at least god, but only inasmuch as He brings healing. Don’t you see? That to which all is subservient must be the highest! Healing is made higher than God, more important and more to be desired. How can we think this is right?
No, Jesus, by His example, demonstrates the proper order: all is subservient to the kingdom, because the kingdom is the abode of God, and all must be subservient to God. Seek first the kingdom. Isn’t that our instruction? Don’t be anxious for the things of this life. God’s got you covered. Isn’t that what He spoke from the start? How simple it sounds, yet how difficult to achieve!
It’s all well and good to say we know God works all things for good. But, when the trial comes? Are my eyes on the kingdom? Am I abiding in the knowledge that He has it all under control? Nope. This man still wants to take charge of the situation, make sure he’s doing all he can to prepare for what may be coming. It’s only when the things that are coming loom too large for my mind to grapple with that I am forced to fall back on what should have been my starting point: trust God.
If I were to list the three activities of the Christ as we have them here, I might list them as enticement, means and purpose. In the end, all these activities are one. They are aimed at a common goal. This is right and fit, as God in His Triune majesty is likewise about a common goal. Father, Son and Holy Spirit may each have their roles to play in attaining to that goal, they may each have their particular office in the effort, but the goal is one, and every separate activity goes towards achieving that singular goal.
So it is here: there is healing, but it is there as an enticement, if you will; an advertisement. In our services, it seems like the word is preached in hopes of setting up the atmosphere in which God might choose to heal somebody. Jesus works things in the exact opposite direction. He heals almost to calm any distractions so that the mind is free (and more inclined) to hear the teaching. Healing gives the ministrant cause to heed the lesson. It is a first evidence, if you will, a reason to consider believing.
Then comes the teaching. Teaching is the means of faith. It is not the only means, but it is the chosen means, the standard means, the typical approach that God has demonstrated and declared. Go forth and make disciples! That is a call to teach. He doesn’t tell us to go forth and become doctors. He says to go forth and be teachers. Teach them what I have taught you. Bring them into obedience to the Word of God. Why? Because faith comes by hearing the Word of God. They cannot believe what has never been told them, not apart from miraculous intervention.
Here is our problem. We want the miraculous intervention. We want to see folks saved, but we want to see them miraculously saved. The day to day of service to God, by our lights, should be exciting; never a dull moment. But, I don’t know that God has ever made any such promise to His children. He didn’t tell His first disciples there to come and He would make them great entertainers of men. He said He would make them fishers of men. I’ve got news for you: fishing isn’t all excitement. It’s often a long stretch of sitting on a log or in a chair. It’s often long hours of mending nets, cleaning barnacles off the boats. It’s work. It’s hard, plodding work. Only occasionally does it get interrupted by excitement. The day to day of fishing is drudgery.
The day to day of ministry according to the plan may seem like drudgery, too. Teaching isn’t nearly as exciting as laying hands on folks and knocking them down like bowling pins. Spending time in study and in learning to truly understand the Word of God’s revelation isn’t anywhere near as exciting as just going out and winging it, counting on imagination and a quick wit to come up with something fresh. Indeed, the folks being ministered to are equally averse to the drudgery of solid faith. They don’t want teaching. They want excitement. They don’t want sound exposition. They want new! They want the thirty second commercial. But, God calls us to a higher calling. He calls us to remain true to His plan, His purpose. Heal, yes, but don’t get focused on it. Teach. Teach because you represent the Teacher who told you to do so. And always, always: Teach them the Good News of the kingdom. Teach them the Truth of God. Don’t lean on your own understanding, and don’t spout your own cleverness. Teach them the Truth. Teach them repeatedly, for they are prone to forgetfulness, just as you are. Teach them God. Give them every reason to believe. Then, leave the impartation of faith to God. It’s His to give, after all, not yours. Yours is to teach.
