The Church's Healing Ministry. David Atkinson
pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare’ (Jer. 29.7).
The wider environmental dimensions of shalom are clear in Isaiah’s vision of the coming abundance of life when all people return to the Lord and his ways:
For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. (Isa. 55.12–13)
This vision speaks of a healed environment when God’s kingly rule is established. As the Catholic theologian Hans Küng once famously wrote: ‘God’s kingdom is creation healed.’[6]
Each part of the prophecy of Isaiah has its emphasis on shalom. The first part of Isaiah speaks of the coming kingly rule of God’s Messiah as a rule of shalom, of peace, justice and righteousness. The coming One is named Prince of Peace (shalom) (Isa. 9.6–7). In the second part of Isaiah, God’s kingly rule is a recapitulation of God’s eternal covenant of peace: ‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace [shalom] shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you’ (Isa. 54.10).
In the third part of Isaiah, the preacher stands in the shoes of the coming king and announces that God has anointed him ‘to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God’ (Isa. 61.1–2).
Naturally, when centuries later Jesus ‘went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness’ (Matt. 9.35), it was understood that Jesus was the bringer of shalom. In fact, he applies the text from Isaiah 61 to himself in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4.1–16), and Matthew records John the Baptist’s question of Jesus:
‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.’ (Matt. 11.3–5)
This echoes the passage in Isaiah 35.5–6, which describes God’s salvation of Israel and the health-giving signs of the messianic age: salvation and health belong closely together; here is the kingdom of peace; Jesus is the bringer of shalom.
Healing in the New Testament
As we will discuss more fully, Jesus exercised a very extensive ministry of healing. This ministry continues into the New Testament church, and gifts of healing were referred to in some of the New Testament epistles (1 Cor. 12.9) and the Acts of the Apostles. The apostles demonstrated many signs and wonders among the people (Rom. 15.19; 2 Cor. 12.12), and in the post-Pentecost church many of the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits were healed. Peter and John healed a man lame from birth, in the name of Jesus (Acts 3.6). At one time the sick were laid on cots in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on them as he passed by, so that they might be healed (Acts 5.12–16). Philip was instrumental in the cure of people possessed, or suffering from paralysis (Acts 8.6–8). Paul and Barnabas were able to speak of signs and wonders (Acts 15.12), and God, we read, performed extraordinary miracles through Paul: handkerchiefs and cloths that had touched his skin were brought to the sick and they were cured (Acts 19.11–12). By prayer and the laying on of hands, Paul cured the father of Publius of his fever and dysentery (Acts 28.8).
Matthew says that disciples ministered to Christ by ‘visiting those who are ill’ (Matt. 25.39), and John tells us they prayed for one another ‘that you may be in good health’ (3 John 2). The practice of anointing with oil, and praying for those who were ill by calling for the elders of the Church, is referred to in the Letter of James (5.13–15).
Not everyone was healed, however. Paul himself refers to his own ailment as a ‘thorn . . . in the flesh’ (2 Cor. 12.7), with which God gave him the grace to cope. This ‘thorn’ has been variously interpreted as an eye disease, a form of epilepsy, a susceptibility to malaria – or maybe some psychological distress following the opposition to his ministry, or his anguish resulting from the unbelief of his Jewish compatriots. Indeed, speculation has been very wide, and certainty about this is impossible. We are told that Timothy had stomach trouble and ‘frequent ailments’ for which Paul prescribed ‘a little wine’ (1 Tim. 5.23); Epaphroditus became so ill that he nearly died (Phil. 2.27); and Paul had to leave Trophimus behind when he left Miletus, because he was ill. Weakness and illness – indeed some deaths – were put down to inappropriate use of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11.30).
Jesus refers to physicians in the Gospels, even of a poor woman who had suffered at the hands of many of them (Matt. 9.12; Mark 2.17; 5.26; Luke 8.43). Luke was a doctor, described by Paul as ‘the beloved physician’ (Col. 4.14). Both Paul and Luke would have known the paragraphs from the second- century bc book of Sirach, which refers to medical skill, indicating that medicines are gifts of the Creator, and yet recognizing the limitations of medical intervention and the need for prayer. It even says that it can be seen as a punishment to fall into the hands of a doctor!
Honour physicians for their services, for the Lord created them; for their gift of healing comes from the Most High, and they are rewarded by the king. The skill of physicians makes them distinguished, and in the presence of the great they are admired. The Lord created medicines out of the earth, and the sensible will not despise them. Was not water made sweet with a tree in order that its power might be known? And he gave skill to human beings that he might be glorified in his marvellous works. By them the physician heals and takes away pain; the pharmacist makes a mixture from them. God’s works will never be finished; and from him health spreads over all the earth.
My child, when you are ill do not delay, but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you. Give up your faults and direct your hands rightly, and cleanse your heart from all sin. Offer a sweet-smelling sacrifice, and a memorial portion of choice flour, and pour oil on your offering, as much as you can afford. Then give the physician his place, for the Lord created him; do not let him leave you, for you need him. There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians, for they too pray to the Lord that he will grant them success in diagnosis and in healing, for the sake of preserving life. He who sins against his Maker will be defiant towards the physician [or: may he fall into the hands of the physician].[7]
Because of sin and death, we need an approach to health that recognizes human frailty, suffering, disease and mortality, but we also need one that acknowledges God’s gifts of healing through medicine and pharmacy as much as through prayer.
The healing ministry of Jesus
The pastoral ministry of the Church needs to be part of the ministry of Jesus, for he is the Church’s pattern and the Church’s resource. The Letter to the Ephesians makes the point that each baptized Christian is united with Christ through the Holy Spirit, and the ascended Christ sends gifts of ministry on to the members. Each has gifts of ministry to offer to the whole body of Christ (Eph. 4.1–15). When the whole body of Christ is working properly, it results in growth and upbuilds itself in love. The corporate ministry of the Christian Church, in other words, is to express and work out the ministry of the ascended Christ. Or, as we put it, Christian pastoral ministry is to be caught up into the pastoral ministry of Jesus. It is worth noting four particular aspects of Jesus’ ministry of healing that are pertinent to our thinking about the Church’s contemporary pastoral ministry.
First, the healing ministry of Jesus proclaims God’s kingdom. When the deaf hear again, when the blind see again, when the paralysed walk again, and when the dead live again, the message is reinforced: God’s kingdom brings new hope where there is despair; new life where there is death, a renewal of health and well-being.
Again and again, Jesus breaks the rules. He touches a leper, even though leprosy made a person unclean. He touches the woman who has a discharge of blood, even though that was thought to be ritually unclean. He reaches out to the dead body