Miraculous Healing

January 28, 2009, 9:08 am by dc-agape.

Mark 1:29-45

This part of the chapter is mostly about the healing powers of Jesus.  I wonder if it was the same 2000 years ago as it is today, with respect to the number of fake “faith healers”.  The US had to create the FDA to minimize fraudulent medical cures (and of course poorly manufactured foods).  So I would have to assume that “miraculous cures” were a dime a dozen in Jesus’ time.  But people were so desperate they would try anything, so when this Jesus entered their town they went to him.  Since he quickly moved from town to town even if he did not heal the people “by faith” many would still come to him in each new town.  Even if Jesus was a true healer, most people were exposed to the fake healer, and as a result, were skeptical of Jesus’ power.  Miraculous cures today are not sufficient to proof the “supernatural” powers; I suspect that it was the same in Jesus’ time, or maybe even worse.

Jesus’ first act of healing that is when he removes a “fever” from Simon’s mother-in-law.  How many women do you know that would get out of bed to serve a “special” guest, all the time claiming that they are perfectly fine?  I would not be surprised if Simon’s mother-in-law did not do the exact same thing.  In fact, the “honor” of having Jesus in her home might have been enough to overcome her symptoms. 

Shortly after this Sabbath healing many more people come to Jesus to be healed.  The next morning Jesus disappears to pray by himself.  Since he has not finished healing all the sick people are still looking for him.  When his disciples find him Jesus tells them it is time to move on.  So he continues his missionary tour of Galilee.

His other recorded healing in this chapter is of a man with “leprosy”.  Leprosy in the OT, and Jesus’ time was any skin discoloration and even clothing.  So a “miraculous” healing of this sort is questionable at best.  The funny thing about this story is that Jesus continues to tell “demons” and this leper not to tell people who he is or what he can do.  Yet this “leper” would have to go to the priest and offer sacrifice for his cleansing.  The priest would of course want to know why he was offering the sacrifice, to verify that it was sanctified.  The priest would also want to know how this man was cured.  So this “leper” would have to break Jesus command of not telling anyone…by directly telling one of the most powerful men in town.  To say the least, the “leper” does not bother to tell the priest…he tells everyone.  This causes a major stir in all of Galilee (yeah right, this one event is responsible) and Jesus can no longer enter the towns but must stay outside “in lonely places”.

So let’s look at it in today’s perspective.  A man shows up for a few days near you and “heals the sick” and “drives out demons (but won’t let them speak)”.  Would you believe that he was a miracle worker?  Or would you be as skeptical of him as you are of all the other “faith healers” that we hear about in the news today?  No wonder YHWH quite doing “miraculous” healing…distinguishing the true ones from the false ones is beyond our poor humanly capacity.  Even today, with all of our medical technology, we have not measured a miracle yet.

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