Jesus and Healing...

As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by."
He called out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"
Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?"
"Lord, I want to see," he replied.

Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.
Luke 18v35-43 (TNIV)

There is no doubt that every single healing Jesus did was a goose-bump inducing event. Pure miracle, beautiful, amazing, glorious. But then the next day would come, and that person would still be in stark poverty, still have the same family and friends, still live in the same village, still be under Roman occupation and Herodian corruption. They'd have to maybe learn a new trade as a middle-aged man, relearn a former trade, or hope they didn't get hurt again once Jesus left. The healing was simply remarkable, but reality would eventually settle in. And then what? What to do with your life as a non-cripple, non-disabled person?

We wish that Jesus would show up, heal all our diseases like he used to, cure the sick, restore the crippled, raise the dead. But then what? Will the misery be banished as well? Will our minds and heart be bitter or sweet and supple? Will our attitudes be dark or light? It's very interesting that only people with faith were healed, only people that trusted Jesus of Nazareth, only people that showed belief in his abilities were able to get healed. Apparently untrusting, bitter, dark-hearted people could not be healed...in part because they didn't want, didn't think Jesus could do it, or didn't consider it a worthwhile gift.

It's worth noting that for a lot of the ailments afflicting the crowds, much of it was society induced. Demon-possession/madness would have been expected as a result of the heart-wrenching atrocities repeatedly committed upon the villages and cities by the Greeks and Romans for centuries. Depleted soils and chronic malnutrition due to wrecked harvests, famines, and ravaged lands led to expected birth defects like blindness, deafness, muteness, lameness and other problems. Not to mention the hard labor required of people born healthy, people prone to unending exhaustion and the resulting accidents and maimings.

When Jesus healed people who trusted him, he gave them a new lease on life; apparently they had the kind of heart and mind to re-engage a dark and cruel world with a restored body. These were people willing to start over again in a hard life, but a life touched by God. These weren't people just clamoring for convenience, they were seeing God at work in their land, God had indeed come to visit - and they wanted Him to come to them.

Jesus doesn't walk the land these days like he did in Palestine all those years ago. But the art of healing has come a long way - the availability of it, as well as the excellence of it, would make God proud. And it's still an art and science that brings awe and joy to many people. But getting healed up is not a right - it's the result of a lot of circumstances coming together in the right way. Getting healed is beautiful when it happens - but it's not the best part. The best part is what you do with yourself before you get healed, while you await healing, and what you do with yourself after you get healed. If you are seeking God these days for healing - for you or for someone else - don't overlook the hard work of making the best of life as it is now... otherwise you will be unprepared for making the best of your life after the healing.

Jesus and the Coming of the Kingdom of God

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is in your midst."
Then he said to his disciples, "The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. People will tell you, 'There he is!' or 'Here he is!' Do not go running off after them. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
Luke 17v20-25 (TNIV)

There are nuanced ways of thinking about what is the Kingdom of God. Is it a large tract of land with a castle in the middle of it? Is it a continent guarded by battleships and airbombers? Is it a spiritual place where God sits on a throne with a crown and dispenses commands to the citizens? Interestingly, Jesus seems to indicate that one way of thinking about the Kingdom of God is to think about it as a person: Him!

This nuanced perspective brings out the irony of the passage: the Pharisees, while looking right into Jesus eyes as they ask him yet another question, are looking right at the answer. And Jesus extends this irony to his disciples: everyone thought that they would know what the Son of Man looked like because of natural phenomena or political/military developments... and thus they cannot see/believe Jesus when he claims to be the Son of Man.

Sometimes this text (and the rest of the section) gets used to defend the Rapture and the End of Times stuff. Again, keeping this Scripture in context eliminates those scenarios. Jesus is referring to himself as the Son of Man, the days he is describing are the ones the listeners are living in, and the destruction he is referring to is likely the Roman assault on Jerusalem in 70AD. Jesus came, as the Son of Man, not to bring judgment, but prevent this destruction, to bring salvation from their pending assault. At one level, Jesus was unsuccessful, he failed in his mission to avert Israel's doom and turn their hearts back to God. On another level, he succeeded: he was obedient to God - even unto the cross; he did save some of the Israelites (and others from the region); he brought the Kingdom of God to Earth and showed us what it looks like.

We see the Kingdom of God on Earth when we see Jesus at work in His world. We see it in us, around us, through us when we yield to His Way of working on Earth. It can be easy to miss Jesus/the Kingdom of God because we see what we want to see. To the degree that we want to see Jesus and his Rule/God's Way prevailing in the world, we will see it. But it is not something that we are just supposed to "see", it is a way of life to be lived, a gift of grace to be enjoyed, a promise of hope to believe, a beautiful reality to be shared.

Jesus, The Rich Man and Lazarus the Beggar

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'

"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'

"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'
"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "
Luke 16v19-31 (TNIV)

This parable gets lots of attention for the supposed details it gives us about heaven and hell. That's unfortunate, because the real value of this parable is found in its broader context - a message to the Pharisees and anybody else obsessed with money.

Jesus had been teaching about money, and he gave us this famous aphorism: You cannot serve both God and Money. Luke records this detail: "The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God's sight." Jesus goes on to provoke them by outlining significant, grievous sins the Pharisees were committing - revealing that they may be able to spout Torah and the Prophets, but they didn't really know it, love it, listen to it.

We can tend to get caught up in certain details of this story: Is Hell the same as Hades? Is it a place of fire-induced agony? Is there a chasm between Hades and Abraham's side? Is Abraham's side the same as Heaven? Can Abraham dialogue with people in Hades/Hell? Can other people shout back and forth? How does that work?

For Christians, anyways, maybe there are some other parts of the text we ought to focus on:
"If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

Christians sometimes think that they can convince people to believe in Jesus because he was raised from the dead, or to believe in Jesus so that they can avoid Hell, or because it is a better way of life. And some of those reasons have probably worked for some people. But Jesus seems to focus on the appeal of God over the agony of Hell. In this life - as hard and bad as it can be - who will you serve? ...not because of wanting to avoid Hell, but because of wanting to know God's heart now. Do we want to value what God values now or not?

The best way to help others consider becoming a Christian is be the kind of Christian they might want to become: one who knows God's heart, one who serves God not money, one who does not justify themselves in others eyes, one who doesn't commit adultery, one who cares for the poor, one who listens to Torah and the Prophets, one who doesn't sneer at Jesus.

Jesus and the Lost Parables

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.

But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

Then Jesus told them [these] parable[s]:

Luke 15v1-3 (TNIV)

Jesus tells a parable about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and two lost sons; you might be familiar with these stories. The essential point of these parables is to help explain why Jesus is welcoming and eating with sinners of all types: Jesus comes to people who are lost on the way to God in order to find them and bring them back to the Father.

* God is like a shepherd (which should evoke some Scriptures from the Psalms and Ezekiel...) who goes after straying sheep - and he throws a big party for everyone when he gets back to the fold.

* God is like a woman (which should raise eyebrows...) who loses a days worth of wages, and who searches and searches until she finds it - and then spends that money to celebrate finding it!

* God is like a Father (which is an old and new idea...) who loses both of his sons, and doesn't go after them, but is ready to receive and throw a big party for them when they are willing to return.

God doesn't want humanity to be lost, and he will come to us, where we live, to help us find our way back home to him. Humans are not quite like sheep (though there are some similarities) and we are not quite like coins (though there is some sad similarities), but we are like sons who stray, make our own choices, and then have to live with the consequences. But like the sons in this story, they can always choose to return to God the Father. Or not.

Return, in the Hebrew language, is the same word for Repent. For humans, being lost doesn't always mean we don't know how to get back home; being lost can also mean we walked away from home. To get found often depends on us choosing to return, to repent, to want to be found. God has come close to us in Jesus (Immanuel/God with us); we can get found anytime we want whenever we take the steps towards returning home.