JESUS – RADICAL FOR OUR TIME
Jesus - Magician or Healer?
John Dominic Crossan, the well-known “Jesus Seminar” scholar says, “Faith heals! That is as sure as anything we can ever now. Certain diseases for certain people under certain circumstances can be healed by faith in that very possibility – at Epidauros for a pagan, at Benares for a Hindu, and so on.” And, says Crossan, “certain people were healed by their faith in Jesus.”
Is it the believer’s faith that is the healing power rather than the object of their faith, such as the god Asklepios or Jesus or the Virgin Mary? Do you believe faith heals? Is the object or content of faith, that is, the “god” in which people believe, important in healing, or is it just the person’s own inner attitude of faith that matters?
Jesus sometimes healed people at a distance, for example the Roman centurion’s servant who was paralyzed. Larry Dossey, M.D. in his book, Healing Words, says healers who use prayer say that “distance is not a factor in the healing power of prayer, and most of them state emphatically that love is the power that makes it possible for them to reach out to heal at a distance.”
Dossey goes on to say, “Love is intimately related with health. This is not sentimental exaggeration. One survey of ten thousand men with heart disease found a fifty percent reduction in frequency of chest pain (angina) in men who perceived their wives as supportive and loving.”
What do you think? Is it love or faith or prayer that heals? Or is prayer just a form of caring or loving. Is the human loving the healing power as opposed to some divine power? What do you think?
In Jesus’ time disease or illness often was attributed to sin. Sin was seen as the cause or reason for the illness. For example, in the incident of the man born blind, the people asked Jesus, “Who sinned, the man or his parents, that he should be born blind?”
Jesus often healed by saying, “Your sins are forgiven.” Should we today understand illness and disease as caused by sin? Should we urge people to confess their sin so as to be healed? Does sin have anything to do with illness and disease? What do you think?
What was radical about Jesus, says John Dominic Crossan, was that he did not “broker” his healing power. Jesus’ family was angry at him because he did not settle down in Nazareth and establish a healing cult, which would have been a source of wealth for them and for all the citizens of Nazareth, just like the other healing centers of the ancient world. Instead of settling down there or at Peter’s house or any other special place, Jesus moved around, offering healing free of charge.
Would he do the same today? Should the world of medicine and healing be tilted more toward mercy than money-making? If people today have the gifts of healing (i.e. an Oral Roberts) should they charge for the healing? Does the fact that the healing profession is so concerned about the “bottom line” inhibit the healing process?
