We live in a push button culture that demands results now without much regard for how those results are achieved. We look for the quick fix, instant gratification, and in many instances, the short cut to success however it is attained. Ball players have used steroids, financiers have “cooked” their books, politicians have compromised time honored values in order to get votes, and certain fallen personalities are given every consideration if it means more money for their peers. But this is not news to anyone who is at least half awake in this polluted social milieux we live in. But just living in this immoral environment has had an insidious effect on the morals and values of Christians who among other things are instructed by James to keep themselves from being polluted by the world (James 1:27).
The real danger is when we unconsciously yield to the social conditioning of the day and begin to acquire the same habits that plague many of our unbelieving neighbors. Having said that, I wish to focus particularly on the distortion in our understanding of the difference between miracles and magic. But to do that I would like to draw our attention to the narrative in Luke 8:40ff where Jesus is on his way to visit the home of an important synagogue leader named Jairus in order to heal the later’s dying twelve year old daughter. As Jesus walks towards his destination he is hemmed in by an unruly crowd of people who have many needs as well as heightened curiosity especially after news had reached them about Jesus’ most recent miracle of delivering a demoniac from a legion of demons (Luke 8:26-39). So as Jesus is pressed on every side by this unruly crowd, he suddenly stops and shouts: “Who touched me?” (8:45) His disciples respond using the modern vernacular: “Are you kidding Jesus? Everybody” is brushing up against you and you want to know who touched you?” Jesus, however, says that this touch was not “incidental body contact” but significant because a healing has taken place. So he insists that the “culprit” be identified. Finally, a lady who had a gynecological bleeding disorder “fesses up”.
We then are enlightened about Jesus desire to know who “touched” him. This woman seems to have formed the impression that all she needed to do was just touch Jesus garment and “shazam!”- She would be healed. There would be no need to identify herself, no need to meet Jesus face to face, no need to bear her soul to Jesus, no need to expose her condition of uncleanness. The only thing that mattered to her was the result as well as protecting her shame over her condition. And yet our “anonymous” supplicant is credited by Biblical exegetes with a primitive faith that found its reward but which needed to be nurtured and refined. And such is the case. Her mechanical or magical approach to healing would have deprived her of her opportunity to be healed wholly by the Great Physician. Because Jesus paused to identify her, she received affirmation for her primitive faith, forgiveness for her sin of touching and mixing in with the crowd even though she was ceremonially unclean (see Leviticus 15:25-27). Her condition might have been “fixed” but the whole person would not have been healed.
A member of our congregation who is a medical professional shared with me his passion for healing the whole person through meaningful personal engagement and attention to the needs of the whole person as compared with impersonally operating on a body or prescribing medicine without really knowing the patient or caring to do so. Objectivity in science is desirable in doing research but it is not where its at when it comes to healing people. Feelings, personality and compassion as well as directly addressing issues like guilt and alienation are critical to real healing. God does not have a handy hypodermic needle full of magical “medicine” that he will give you if you beg him enough, but he offers you a crimson cross and the joy of knowing Him. We often seek the quick result but neglect the relationship with our heavenly father who heals perfectly. This rush to relief betrays our desire for a magical cure (in some cases, regardless of the source) but not for a healing that gives us peace (see Romans 5:1) as well as physical health. On that busy day in the life of Jesus that woman went away healed and in peace with God and men. Are you looking for a magical cure or the peace of God that heals body and soul?
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