Daily Devo w/ Pastor Eric September 16, 2021
The Purpose of Healing
Matthew 8:1-4, NIV - When Jesus came down from the
mountainside, large crowds followed him.
A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are
willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the
man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his
leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show
yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to
them.”
Moving to Chapter 8, Jesus has
finished the Sermon on the Mount and is still attracting large crowds. A man approaches him who has leprosy. Let’s stop right there because a man with leprosy
should be nowhere near a large crowd.
The man is putting others in danger (it’s contagious!), but he is also
putting himself in danger. Lepers were forbidden to approach people without the
disease. They were often required to
carry a bell and ring it when others approached and shout “unclean.” People with this disease were outcasts in
every way. To this day the word “leper”
is a synonym for outcast. So the man is
defying the law in order to speak to Jesus.
“If you are willing, you can make
me clean,” putting Jesus on the spot.
“I am willing; be clean,” is Jesus’s
response and immediately the man is healed.
However, the leper isn’t officially
healed yet. Leprosy in Jesus’s day was
not curable. On the rare occasion
someone recovered from the disease, the law said the person was to go to the
priest to verify the healing. Only
after receiving a written declaration of healing from the priest was the person
allowed to re-enter the community. Jesus
knows this and so he says:
“See that you don’t tell anyone.
But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a
testimony to them.”
Jesus is not only healing the man’s
body; he is giving him the path back into community. Not only is the man delivered from a
physically debilitating illness, he is delivered from shunned isolation. The man is told not to tell anyone he is
healed until he has gone to the priest because he is not fully healed until he
is declared restored to community. We’ll
talk more about Jesus’s telling people “not to tell” as get further into this
compelling book of Matthew, but for now, let’s focus on the healing.
One of the profound purposes of
healing, physical and otherwise is restoration to community. If you’ve ever been quarantined because of COVID
or something else, then you got a just a taste of the isolation. Being declared “clean” is a moment of joy mostly
because you can be with people again. You time of “being an outcast” is over!
The “salvation” Jesus offers is more
communal than personal. We are saved,
healed, and delivered not to be a saved individual, but to join the community
of Christ. As the apostle Paul put it,
we become part of a Body, the Body of Christ.
Watch for this theme as we continue our journey through Matthew, but
more importantly, watch for this theme in your own life. You are saved for community, not just for
yourself.
Question: As you
think about your own experience, what is the connection between your sense of
being healed and your sense of belonging to a community?
Prayer: Three-In-One
God, your very identity as the Holy Trinity models community. We are in awe that you invite us to share in
in this divine relationship. We are
healed by this connection. We praise you
for that God. We love you! Help us to bring your healing and restoration
to others by the way we love each other. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Spend
some time thanking God for specific brothers and sisters in your faith
community.
Song: Lean On Me
(Bill Withers) | Playing For Change | Song Around The World
No comments:
Post a Comment