Bright ideas, simple reflections — a little light for every step of the way.
What do you do with a bunch of old sermons? Turn them into a blog – refined, condensed, made for today’s world – feel free to use as written, or as fodder for your own message. It’s For you! No permission needed or credit given. (Scroll down for previous posts)
Sunday June 7 – Second Sunday after Pentecost/Lectionary 10
Hosea 5:15—6:6
Psalm 50:7-15
Romans 4:13-25
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
The Jesus Kind of Healing
Grace and peace to you in the name of the One who makes us whole—our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
A few years ago, my daughter called to tell me that my grandson, who was about three at the time, had been running down the hallway at their church, tripped, and hurt his foot. At first, they weren’t sure what was wrong. He wouldn’t put any weight on it, so after calling urgent care, they were told to take him to the ER.
After several X-rays and more than one diagnosis, they finally got a clear answer from a specialist: he had broken his foot.
Not long after that, my daughter tried to get him to take a nap one afternoon. He was not interested. She told him, “If you rest, it will help your foot heal.” He replied, “I don’t need a nap—Jesus will heal my foot.”
I don’t remember exactly how she answered, but she still made him take the nap!
Jesus will heal it. Maybe he was just playing the “Jesus card” to avoid a nap. But I heard him say it more than once, with simple confidence, while I was there helping. While the adults were focused on diagnoses, treatment, and next steps, my grandson—usually busy coloring or building with Legos—kept calmly reminding us that God would heal his foot.
What a gift that kind of childlike faith is— the kind of faith Jesus tells us to have, yet the kind we often struggle to hold onto as we grow older and more skeptical.
In the next few weeks, we’ll hear several healing stories from Matthew’s Gospel.
Today’s passage is no exception: Jesus is healing people. A religious leader’s daughter is near death, or perhaps already gone. A woman has lived with a bleeding disorder for twelve years.
To be honest, when I read these healing stories, my thoughts and emotions pull in different directions. I’m inspired, but I’m also puzzled. These stories give me hope, yet they can also leave me with questions.
Most of us have seen people experience healing—sometimes in ways that feel remarkable, even miraculous.
And most of us have seen the opposite too: people who were not healed in the ways we hoped or prayed for.
So, what are we supposed to do with that? Does it really come down to faith, as Jesus seems to suggest when he tells the woman, “Your faith has made you well”?
Let’s pause there for a moment.
I’ve seen people recover from illness who did not seem to have much faith in Jesus at all.
And I’ve seen faithful people suffer illness without receiving the healing they longed for.
So again, what do we make of that?
That is the question before us.
As I prayed and reflected on these stories, I sensed God saying, “Don’t get stuck trying to define healing too narrowly. Focus on being made well.”
Don’t focus only on physical healing, as if that were the whole story. Jesus seems to say, “You do not understand healing the way I do. Look at who I am healing.” It is everyone: tax collectors and sinners, the child of a religious leader, and a woman who had been labeled unclean for years. It is people with very little faith and people with such bold faith that they reach out just to touch the hem of his garment.
And in one way or another, God brings healing to them all.
We do not have to prove our worthiness, and we do not have to measure where we fall on some scale of faith.
We are simply invited to trust that in Christ we are being made well. The Greek word used in this passage is sozo, a word that can mean healed, saved, made whole, or delivered. In other words, Jesus is doing more than restoring bodies. He is restoring lives.
He is making us whole.
That is the kind of healing we are called to trust. Will that trust always bring the exact outcome we think we need? No. But it can hold us steady. It can carry us when our strength gives out. It can surround us with a peace that passes understanding when we can no longer make sense of what is happening.
God’s healing comes in many forms. Sometimes it looks like recovery. Sometimes it looks like endurance. Sometimes it looks like comfort, courage, or the strength to take the next breath and the next step. Sometimes it looks like letting go of our own understanding and leaning on God’s ways.
Sometimes what does not look like healing at first becomes a deeper kind of healing than we ever expected. I have heard people say, “I would never have chosen what I went through, but in the middle of it I came to know God’s presence and love more deeply than ever before.” And that, too, is holy. That, too, is healing. That too, is being made well.
So whatever healing looks like in your life right now, hear this good news: God has not abandoned you.
God is with you in the waiting.
God is with you in the grief.
God is with you in the unanswered questions.
And God is with you in the hope that still flickers in the dark.
The One who makes us whole is still at work—gently, faithfully, lovingly—making you well, making you whole. So, hold on. Trust the journey God has you on. And when your faith feels small, trust that Christ is still holding on to you. Trust that your healing is coming. Better and more beautiful than you could ever imagine.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
God's Yes + My Amen 