HEALING HULLABALOO
Gospel Reading: John 5:1-3, 5-16

"Do you want to be healed?"... "It is the Sabbath and you are not allowed to carry that mat around. "The man who had been restored to health had no idea who it was [who cured him.] vv. 6,10,13

There are three major points that strike me from this Gospel reading: Do we really want to be healed? Do we overly structure healing? Do we want to be noticed by healing others?

IS HEALING WANTED?

Sometimes we are self-indulgent because sickness gets us things: attention, time off, needed rest. We must believe that what we ask for in prayer will happen, with no inner doubts, or it will not. If we don't really want to be healed in the first place, we will be filled with inner doubts, and we will not be healed.

DOES STRUCTURE IMPEDE HEALING?

The Sabbath laws quoted by the Jews in today's Scripture were not God's, they were man's. Oh yes, the Old Testament law concerning work on the Sabbath had inspired their law, but now they were impeding a greater divine law with human precepts.

Sometimes we do the same. The sacrament of the anointing of the sick was given by God, but sometimes we limit God to the sacrament he gave and thus discount healings through other non-sacramental means. The integrity of the sacraments should be retained, but to limit God to the law he gave is to attempt to control and monopolize God.

WHO IS HONORED?

Lastly, who gets the honor for healing? The sick man here didn't even know who healed him. There are no cameras rolling! Jesus slipped through the crowd without being recognized. Do we seek recognition for ministry? If so, then we are not acting as Christ acted.

To conclude, we ask the same three questions: Do we really want healing? Do we limit God's healing by human laws? Do we really give God glory for healing? How we answer these questions may give us insight about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the healing ministry in our community, church, or ministry team.

John Michael Talbot