clue to the answer.
They said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many that were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” (Luke 7:20–22)
With this reply Jesus recalls the biblical passages that foretold the messianic age as a time of abundant healings. Isaiah had prophesied:
“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a dear,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.” (Isa 35:5–6; see Isa 29:18; 42:7)
Before the eyes of John’s messengers, Jesus proceeded to fulfill these very promises by restoring sight to the blind and curing others of disease and demonic oppression. He is indeed “the one who is to come.”
Signs of the Kingdom
Jesus’ healings are inseparable from his preaching of the kingdom of God. He began his public ministry by announcing the arrival of the kingdom (Mark 1:15); then he demonstrated it by his healings and miracles. In Jesus’ very presence, in his words and deeds, the reign of God has been inaugurated on earth. The dominion of Satan has been broken and the restoration of all creation has begun.
As Jesus says in the Gospel of John, “the works which the Father has given me to accomplish, these very works which I am doing, bear me witness that the Father has sent me” (John 5:36).22 This saying does not mean that his works are merely external proofs of his divinity, as if he did them simply to convince people that he is who he says he is. In fact, more often than not his miracles turned the religious authorities against him.23 Rather, the miracles are the embodiment of the good news itself: that he is the long-awaited Messiah who has come to overthrow every kind of evil and restore God’s people to the fullness of life.
To convey this deeper understanding of Jesus’ works, the Gospel of John prefers to call them signs rather than miracles. Each of the miracles, perceived with the eyes of faith, signifies something. Each reveals an aspect of Jesus’ identity and mission. His turning of water into wine at Cana reveals that he is the bridegroom of the messianic wedding (John 2:1–11; 3:25). His multiplication of loaves reveals that he is the bread of life (John 6:35). His healing of the blind man reveals that he is the light of the world, who brings us out of spiritual darkness (John 9:5). His raising of Lazarus reveals that he is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). Jesus heals and gives life because it is his very nature, as God, to do so. All his works are meant to lead us into the mystery of his divine identity and messianic mission.
Scripture often uses the phrase “signs and wonders” to speak of the miracles God did through Moses during the exodus.24 In Acts 2:22 Peter uses these same words for Jesus’ miracles to show that Jesus has accomplished the new and greater exodus — the redemption of his people from slavery to sin. Jesus’ healings are signs because they signify his definitive victory over sin and all its consequences, his inauguration of the kingdom, and the beginning of the “last days” (Acts 2:17). They are wonders because they provoke wonder, awe, praise, and gratitude in those who witness them.25
He Healed Them All
Reading the Gospels one gets the strong impression that Jesus was not only willing but eager to heal. The Gospels repeatedly affirm the unlimited scope of his healings.
They brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. (Matt 4:24)
[He] healed all who were sick. (Matt 8:16; cf. Mark 1:32)
Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity. (Matt 9:35)
They sent round to all that region and brought to him all that were sick, and begged him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment; and as many as touched it were made well. (Matt 14:35–36; cf. Mark 8:56)
All those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. (Luke 4:40)
All the crowd sought to touch him, for power came forth from him and healed them all. (Luke 6:19)
Everywhere Jesus went he was besieged by the sick and infirm. Nowhere do the Gospels record that he instructed a person simply to bear the suffering assigned to them. In no case does he indicate that a person is asking for too much and should be content with a partial healing or no healing. He invariably treats illness as an evil to be overcome rather than a good to be embraced.26
Jesus does not always respond immediately to the demands of the needy crowds. On a few occasions, he withdraws to be alone with the Father in prayer and then to move on to his next destination (Mark 1:35–38; Luke 5:15–16). It is also reasonable to infer that Jesus did not heal every sick person within reach. At the pool of Bethesda, there lay “a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed” (John 5:3), but the Gospel mentions his speaking to and curing only one lame man. In Acts, Peter and John heal a crippled man who was a well-known beggar at the temple gate (Acts 3:1–10); presumably Jesus had passed by him many times at this gate and had not healed him. He left something for his apostles to do! There are also instances in which Jesus initially seems to refuse a request, but then in response to persistent faith does perform a miracle (the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:20–28, the official with a sick son in John 4:46–53, and Mary at Cana in John 2:1–11).27 However, the Gospels record no instance in which a person asks Jesus for healing and is categorically refused.
This evidence from Scripture ought to challenge our accustomed ideas about the Lord’s will to heal. Have we too easily accepted the idea that sickness should simply be embraced? Do we too easily assume that if a person is ill, God wants her to remain that way for her good? Could our resignation to illness or infirmity even sometimes be a cloak for unbelief? Scripture does not say that the Lord will always heal in response to our prayer if only we have enough faith. Jesus instructs his followers not only to heal the sick but also to “visit” them (Matt 25:36), and Paul’s letters refer to cases where sickness remains, at least for a time, despite his own charism of healing (Gal 4:13; Phil 2:26–27; 1 Tim 5:23; 2 Tim 4:20). However, it is reasonable to conclude that the Lord desires to heal far more often than we think.
Healing on the Sabbath
It is well known that Jesus often healed on the Sabbath, provoking the fury of scribes and Pharisees who regarded healings as work, which was prohibited on the Sabbath (Luke 13:14; John 5:16). A less well-known but striking fact is that every healing that Jesus himself initiated was on the Sabbath. Jesus responded to requests from sick people, or their parents or friends, on any day of the week. But wherever the Gospels record healings he did apart from any request, they are on the Sabbath. On the Sabbath Jesus restored a man’s withered hand, straightened the back of a woman who had been bent over for eighteen years, cured a man with dropsy (water retention), made a crippled man walk, gave sight to a man born blind, and delivered a demon-possessed man.28
This pattern is no mere coincidence. Jesus’ evident preference for healing on the Sabbath is, like the healings themselves,
