I'm sitting in my office this afternoon, worshiping and writing, and I came across this little scrap of paper that I jotted a note on a few months back. I think it's something that is going to develop into another sermon about who Jesus is:
The Miraculous Restoration of God's Healing
-When Jesus performed miracles of healing, He could have simply brought people out of a situation where things were bad and broken into a temporary mend- going from completely blind to be able to see "good enough," from being crippled to being able to hobble about, from years of internal bleeding and intense pain to being in lessened, manageable pain.
How ecstatic those healed would have been! One moment, I can't see at all and then the next, I simply need glasses... I can't walk one moment and then the next, I need a cane, but I'm shuffling around better than I've ever been able to. Healing of any kind to someone needing healing would be an amazing blessing.
But Jesus didn't deal in temporary fixes. Jesus dealt in overwhelming grace and generosity- showing us that there is nothing that we can bring to Him that can overwhelm Him or exhaust His generosity. Jesus goes big- period; hard stop.
The miraculous healing brought with it an immediate restoration to "brand new" status. Restored sight comes with healthy, like new eyes- and even more miraculously- doesn't require any time needed to get used to going from blindness to sight. The blind opened their eyes and were able to see (in the one recorded example we have where a man didn't immediately receive full healing, Jesus gave it a second go and then it was at 100%).
I watched my mom go from being hearing-impaired and nearly deaf for my entire life to getting dual cochlear implants- and there was a steep learning curve as she had to get used to the implants and her brain had to learn all these new sounds.
Jesus' restoration came immediately:
"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'
'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, 'but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.'
After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 'Go,' he told him, 'wash in the Pool of Siloam' (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, 'Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?' Some claimed that he was.
Others said, 'No, he only looks like him.'
But he himself insisted, 'I am the man.'
'How then were your eyes opened?' they asked.
He replied, 'The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.'
'Where is this man?' they asked him.
'I don’t know,' he said.
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. 'He put mud on my eyes,' the man replied, 'and I washed, and now I see.'" (John 9:1-13)
Even more amazingly, Jesus' restoration doesn't just cover miraculous healing! The covering over our sins and restoration of our relationship with the Father happens immediately, as well.
The moment you confess of your broken, sinful ways and put your faith in the free gift of salvation that Jesus offers, you are restored to a place of honor in the family of God! Just like those that Jesus healed immediately, there is no waiting period as we wait for our restoration to take hold or any requirement that we must make ourselves good before we can receive it. We simply ask in good faith and it happens.
