Charlatan faith healers have been around since the New Testament when Simon Magus tried to buy the Holy Spirit in order to make money as a healer. When we turn on the TV and see people blowing healing power on audience members, or even doing things like throwing their suit coats into the crowd or praying over handkerchiefs in order to spread their healing powers on people, we realize this is nothing new; it is just the next chapter in people pedaling the gospel for their own gain. These kooks are crooks, giving Christianity a bad name while making a name for themselves.
Jesus, on the other hand, was no trickster. He was a genuine healer who ministered to the masses without charging a dime from them. He never tried to heal someone and failed, and then blamed that person’s lack of faith (or lack of financial seed being sown) for the lack of healing. Jesus was a healer because He is God in the flesh. The disciple and gospel writer Matthew really wanted his readers to understand this about his master. Early in his gospel Matthew generically wrote that Jesus healed all who came to Him (4:23), but the first specific healings Matthew mentioned come in chapter 8. These event are written out of order, so Matthew chose to highlight these three on purpose (by the way, ancient biographies were not concerned with chronology; Matthew’s anachronistic account of the ministry of Jesus does not mean he is in error). Let’s briefly look at those first three healings in Matthew.
The first person healed is a leper. Leprosy was basically a death sentence, although some survived the painful condition. Once a person was diagnosed as a leper, he became ceremonially unclean, and any person with whom he made physical contact was likewise unclean. For that reason, a person living with leprosy was living without human contact. In addition to the physical pain, lepers also lived with emotional pain as they were literal outcasts from the community. Jesus could have healed the leper with nothing more than His words, but I’m so glad that Scripture records, “Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him (8:3).” This man had not been touched since the day of his diagnosis, and then Jesus laid a healing hand upon him.
In the next passage Jesus heals the servant of a military leader. The Roman centurion was not only a Gentile, who was unclean to the Jews, but he was also a high-ranking soldier for the nation that oppressed the Jews; he was doubly disdained by the Jewish crowd. Furthermore, the servant was a minor slave, making him among the least important people in society. This time using only His words, and with a considerable distance between them, Jesus simply announced that the servant was healed, and he was. Finally, Jesus heals a lady. Peter’s mother-in-law was sick, and again Jesus made physical contact to bring about her healing. Women were second class to men in that culture, and touching this woman would have been considered scandalous.
I believe Matthew brought these three healings together for a reason. Together, these events give us a microcosm of not only Jesus’ healing ministry, but also of the love and compassion of God. It didn’t matter to Jesus if the leper was unclean; it didn’t matter that the centurion was a Roman; it didn’t matter that women were viewed as being inferior. God is no respecter of persons, and He didn’t favor one class or group over another. It doesn’t matter to God if you are male or female, black or white, young or old, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, and so on. Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight.
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