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John 20:1-18
The Role of Faith in Healing
Sermon preached by Pastor C. John Steer
Autumn Ridge Church, Rochester, MN
March 1 & 2, 2008
Scripture: John 4:43-5:15
No. 7: John’s Gospel
Today I want to talk about the role of faith in healing, so please turn to John chapter 4 in your Bible and the outline in your bulletin.
To illustrate our subject let me tell you about two ladies.
The first is called Ginny. I used to visit her every week when I was a seminary student over 30 years ago. Ginny had MS and spent her life in a wheelchair. As a result of her disease her husband had left her. She was a woman of great faith and I always enjoyed our chats and time of prayer together.
One day I went to see Ginny and found her weeping.
I asked what the problem was and she told me that she had gone to a healing meeting led by a famous healer.
She was thrilled when he invited her up on the stage.
The healer asked Ginny if she believed that God wanted to heal her and she assured him that she did.
The man prayed for her and told her to get out of her wheelchair, something she hadn’t done in months.
Ginny rose rather uncertainly to her feet.
She was absolutely thrilled at this apparent healing and was able to return home under her own power.
However, the next day she was as bad as ever.
She was immensely discouraged and returned to the healer to ask him what had happened.
He told her that God had healed her but her lack of faith meant that the healing had no effect. Ginny’s question to me was, “how can I have stronger faith so that the healing will take.”
This was the first time I encountered the subject of the role of faith in healing. I was too inexperienced to know how to answer Ginny’s question. The healing didn’t pass the smell test but I was not sure what to tell her.
The second lady is called Dr. Saroj
I met her two weeks ago in India.
She was a professor of botany at the University of Hyderabad.
She attended our Conference in Ooty.
I asked her how she became a believer.
She said she had been raised as a practicing Hindu.
In her 50’s she became very unwell.
A Christian friend invited her to come to church when they had a healing service. She didn’t want to go. She did not believe in the Christian God and had no expectations whatsoever.
However, to please her friend she went to church.
The congregation prayed for her and she was miraculously healed. As a result she became a Christian and now her whole family have become believers.
So what do we make of those two stories? Ginny had faith and wasn’t healed. Dr. Saroj had no faith and was healed.
The passage we are looking at today also tells us two stories.
They involve two men who both received a healing from Jesus but they could hardly be more different.
First let’s notice the contrast of the stories.
The first contrast involves their position.
One was a wealthy royal official from the court of King Herod.
But when his boy is critically ill he doesn’t run to King Herod but to King Jesus to plead for his child’s life.
He travels from Capernaum, 20 miles from Cana where Jesus is.
This father wasn’t too proud to admit his need.
He sought divine help when his family was in danger.
He is a model for every man.
The longing of this VIP is brought out in this etching by Francis Hoyland. Hoyland has dedicated his life to art.
There is an exhibition of his 91 prints depicting the life of Christ going on in London now and there is a complete set in the British Museum. The prints are elegant but understated and this one conveys the urgency of this father.
This dad experienced the agony of any parent who sees their child desperately ill.
We all long for our children to have full lives but the very first grave dug in the Bible was for a son.
That is why we need to treasure our children now.
The second man was poor. He was unable to make a living because he “Had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.” (John 5:5) He was dependent on others to carry him to the Pool of Bethesda each day in the forlorn hope that he might be cured.
He had no influence. The experience of suffering has soured him.
The Pool of Bethesda was a well known place of healing in Jerusalem. It was just north of the Temple Mount.
The site has been excavated by archeologists and if you go to Jerusalem you can see it for yourself.
It is now known as the Pool of St. Anne.
The waters of the pool would bubble up periodically, probably from an underground spring. There were some people who thought this was caused by an angel.
They believed that the first person to get into pool after the stirring of the waters would be healed.
The reason there is no verse 4 in this passage is that some copies of the gospel have an extra verse at this point explaining this business of the angel stirring the waters.
But most of the oldest and best copies omit it and that is why the NIV has not included it.
Next notice their expectations.
The ruler expected healing. The invalid man did not.
The ruler had heard of Jesus and his extraordinary power.
The paralyzed man had no clue who Jesus was.
The ruler sought out Jesus. But Jesus sought out the lame man.
Then notice their outcomes.
Both received healing but the results were very different.
When the royal official’s son made a spectacular recovery,
“He and all his household believed.” (John 4:53)
It is all wonderfully positive.
Luke tells us about some wealthy women who followed Jesus and supported him out of their private means.
One of them was, “Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household.” (Luke 8:3)
It is possible that Cuza and Joanna were the grateful parents of the little boy healed in this chapter.
The healing of the invalid on the Sabbath was anything but positive. It incurred the wrath of the Jewish leaders who could not focus on the triumph of the healing but rather on the transgression of the Sabbath law.
What is the role of faith in these two healings?
Can we come to any conclusions?
To answer that question we must look at the significance of the signs.
Remember there are seven signs in John’s gospel.
The first was the turning of water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. These are the second and third signs.
John is selecting these miracles out of the hundreds Jesus performed in order to make a very important point.
Remember John’s whole purpose in writing his gospel is that, “You may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
(John 20:31)
The first thing we learn from these signs is the desire of Jesus.
These healings are not so much the result of faith but serve to encourage faith.
Jesus wants the faith of both of these men to grow.
That is why Jesus initially appears to discourage the royal official when he says, “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders you will never believe.” (John 4:48)
The ruler has some faith but he thinks Jesus needs to be physically present in order for his son to be well.
That is why he, “Begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.” (John 4:47)
Jesus wants to show the father that he is not limited by geography.
The ruler eventually grasps this and his faith does grows.
We know this because we are told that it was the seventh hour in the day when Jesus said, “You may go. Your son will live.” (John 4:50)
The seventh hour was 1:00 p.m.
Therefore there was plenty of time for the official to have walked the 20 miles back to Capernaum that afternoon.
However, he had such confidence in Jesus that he stayed the night in Cana and did not make the journey until the next day when his servants met him and told him, “The fever left your son yesterday at the seventh hour.” (John 4:52)
The crippled man begins with no faith and so Jesus stirs it by asking, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6)
Jesus’ question is a penetrating one.
An Eastern beggar could lose a good living by being cured.
It is easy to become accustomed to life around the pool of misery. The peer group there do not criticize us.
People make space for our stretcher and leave us to ourselves.
Jesus’ question, “Do you want to get well?” needs to be faced by all who would be delivered.
Are we ready for the implications of being healed?
Jesus further encouraged the man’s faith when he commands, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” (John 5:11)
That required a measure of faith to obey when the man had not walked in years.
When Jesus says, “Get up”, he uses a word often found in the New Testament to describe the resurrection.
This provides a glimpse into the purpose of the miracle.
Jesus does not just want the man to rise physically but spiritually.
Next we notice the power of Jesus.
He is able to heal the boy at a distance of 20 miles.
He is able to restore the legs of a lame man who has not walked in decades.
So in these two stories of healing we see the total sufficiency of Jesus for those who are distant as well as for those nearby.
For those who do not seek it for themselves as well as for those who do. For the needs of the body as well as for the needs of the spirit. For those who are young as well as those who are mature. Christ is enough.
The paralyzed man dramatizes our hopeless condition.
We too cannot help ourselves and so Christ comes to us.
It was, “When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6)
And that is how Jesus saves us today.
If our salvation depended upon our recognizing him or reaching out a hand towards him, none of us would be saved.
So Christ comes to us and speaks the words that give life.
Then we notice the compassion of Jesus.
He sees a need and responds to it.
He perceives a little faith and strengthens it.
The crippled man had no one to help him into the pool.
Jesus is always the friend of the friendless and the helper of the person who has no earthly help.
Jesus didn’t bother to give the man a lecture on the useless superstition of waiting for the water to be stirred.
His one desire was to help and with his word of power he healed the man who had waited so long.
At our conference in India we spent an afternoon discussing the ministry of healing.
Some of the Indian pastors pointed out that our sin is sometimes the cause of our sickness.
That is not always the case but sometimes it is.
Jesus implies here that the crippled man had got into his present condition because of his sin.
When Jesus sees the man later in the temple he says to him,
“Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (John 5:14)
But whatever the cause of the illness Jesus’ compassion healed that man completely and totally.
That should give us enormous confidence to ask God to heal us in body, mind, and spirit.
Something in this man’s past had cast a malignant shadow over his life. We all suffer to some degree from the hurts and errors of yesterday. For some people the shadow is particularly dark and overwhelming.
If it is not dealt with we too will lie emotionally and relationally paralyzed. But the good news is that Jesus has come to heal us so we can leave the place of misery and go to the place of worship.
So as we look at these two healings as well as others in the gospel we see that some healings follow faith and others do not. More importantly we see that the purpose of healing is to bring glory to God.
When my Indian friend Dr. Saroj was healed her salvation and that of her family brought glory to God.
But in his infinite wisdom God sometimes determines that we can glorify him better in physical weakness.
Not everybody is healed. There were hundreds of people at the Pool of Bethesda who weren’t healed by Jesus that day.
The mystery of God’s sovereignty is at work here.
My friend Ginny was not healed.
But it had nothing to do with her lack of faith.
What that healer told her was both cruel and untrue.
I understand now that Ginny was able to get out of her wheelchair because of the power of suggestion and the energy that adrenaline can give at moments of emotional crisis.
Once it wore off she was back in her wheelchair.
God was saying to her “my loving purpose for you is to serve me in suffering.” And that is exactly what she did.
If you are one those who are wondering if your lack of faith is preventing your healing let me point you to the Apostle Paul.
If ever there was man of faith it was him.
Yet Paul prayed three times for the Lord to heal him but instead received the promise from Jesus, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
(2 Corinthians 12:9)
In our church we have seen God heal in miraculous ways which have brought great glory to him and resulted in our faith being strengthened.
On other occasions God has not chosen to heal and we have marveled at the extraordinary grace displayed by those who are suffering.
They too have brought glory to God and our faith has grown through their witness.
Yet while God in his mercy does not always require faith in the person being healed, he clearly wants us to have faith.
We need to ask for greater faith like the father who said to Jesus, “I believe, help my unbelief.”
We do need faith to effectively pray for the sick for James tells us, “The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up.” (James 5:15)
Those who have this sort of faith need to teach those of us who don’t and point the way to Christ.
Whenever I have the opportunity I like to run with the Hash House Harriers.
The Hash is an unusual race.
It was started by expatriate rubber planters in Malaya in 1938.
It is based on the game of Hare and Hounds.
Two runners called hares go out early in the day and lay a trail on the ground using flour.
Later in the day the other runners called hounds gather.
Their job is to follow the trail but it is not as easy as it sounds because the hares deliberately lay false trails.
From time to time as you are running along you come to a big X made with flour at the meeting of several paths.
You are not sure where to go and so runners go off in all directions shouting “checking, checking.”
They may need to go a quarter of a mile until suddenly the trail of flour picks up again. Throughout this time the runners are calling to each other, ‘Are you? Are you?’
Meaning, “Have you found the trail?”
It is not like a typical race in that all the runners are assisting each other. It is also unusual because at the halfway point everyone stops for drinks which is particularly welcome in hot countries like Indonesia and Vietnam.
Last weekend I was running in the Kent Hash on the South Coast of England. The runs normally last about two hours although I have been in one on Java that lasted six hours when a monsoon obliterated all the flour and we were left hopelessly lost in the jungle.
That didn’t happen last weekend though. The Hares had laid a challenging race and there were lots of cries “Are you, Are you?” Once a runner finds a trail the cry goes up, “On, on.”
It is passed back to the last runner.
Now we know where we are going.
Soon the finish comes in view where refreshments are provided and the singing of joyful songs in what is called the “Hash Circle”.
And so it is for us as Christians. Sometimes we lose the way.
Our faith grows low. But then one of us finds the trail again and cries “On on.” And we run with endurance the race that has been laid out for us, pressing on to the prize that Jesus will give.