Some of you who read my previous piece, Breaking and Mending 1, may be thinking that what I wrote was too simplistic and naive. After all, if someone is ill physically or mentally, or broken in some way, and medical support has not been of much benefit, then putting your faith or trust in someone who is not even visible, and speaking to them, and, furthermore, expecting an answer, could be seen to be futile.
The man, unable to walk, knew that it was pretty futile to lie, day after day, at the edge of the Pool of Bethsaida, because when there was a chance of being healed as the water of the pool was stirred, someone else always beat him to it. Futile, or not, he continued to hope. But then Jesus sees him lying there, and says, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ What a funny question! Of course he does! ( John 5: 1 – 9)
The majority of broken people hope, or indeed, long, to be mended. Living with pain and suffering, fear and anxiety is not an easy life. Some illnesses cannot be cured by medicine, but have to be managed, some illnesses are life-changing and have to be adapted to, some illnesses are exacerbated by circumstance and response. I have found through my experience of healing ministry that prayer and laying-on-of hands sometimes results in total healing, but always results in wholeness and a sense of peace. Jesus’ question, ‘Do you want to be made well?’, resonates with a verse of STF 366
‘Jesus, my all in all thou art:
My rest in toil, my ease in pain,
The medicine of my broken heart,
In war my peace, in loss my gain,
My smile beneath the tyrant’s frown,
In shame my glory and my crown.’
The healing ministry is not the prerogative of the dog-collar. Anyone can offer prayer for healing, because the healing ministry is not attached to one particular person, it is always the healing ministry of Jesus.
Joanna Cannon writes of the extraordinary nurses and doctors and other support workers she has encountered in mental health. ‘An entire population of people whose only purpose in life is to give a patient back their self-belief and to rescue a life worth living’.
Jesus gave back to the man by the pool, his self-belief, and so much more. He gave him life in all it’s fulness.
Prayers for healing restore self-belief, hope and a peace that passes all understanding. Never be afraid to ask for Jesus’ ministry of healing, and never be afraid to offer it.