Day 14 of 30 · Week 3 · Jesus Christ the Messiah

Cure on a Sabbath

After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep [Gate] a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be well?”
The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”
Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
Now that day was a Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” He answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’”
They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”
The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
THE CALMING OF A STORM AT SEA
On that day, as evening drew on, He said to them, “Let us cross to the other side.”
Leaving the crowd, they took Him with them in the boat just as He was. And other boats were with Him. A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm.
Then He asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”
They were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”
John 5:1–15; Mark 4:35–41

Evening Prayer

Jesus Heals

Carolyn Berghuis, MS, ND, CTN

What is it that people sought out in Jesus during His earthly ministry? The New Testament reveals to us the answer, people sought Him out for physical healing and they deeply desired to hear Him speak and reveal to them the Truth. Over and over we read of the masses presenting themselves to Jesus for physical healing for themselves of their loved ones. Additionally, we read verse after verse how His followers hung on His every word and how they were amazed at His message. Yes, they needed healing of their physical ills and their spirits needed spiritual healing found only in the Truth Jesus gave the world. How blessed were they to live in the midst of God Himself made manifest as Jesus Christ—the source of true healing.

Our world today carries the same needs, we cry out for physical healing and our hearts yearn for true spiritual healing. Yes, today we are still in desperate need of Jesus’ healing hand and His true words. As a Naturopath I have witnessed firsthand the physical, emotional and spiritual pain experienced by those who seek my care. Perhaps, not unlike the leper in today’s Gospel, they wish to be made “clean”. They wish to be brought back into their family, back into their community, back into health and wellness. And most of all, they wish to be loved and they wish to love. However, unlike Jesus, I can’t will their healing into reality, I have had to rely on the natural remedies I have at my disposal.

And this is where I find myself at a crossroads. What are we missing? Why can’t we “will” healing and witness it’s immediate manifestation as the leper did when Jesus willed it? After all, Jesus told us in John 14:12 that we can do such works if we believe.

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father —John 14:12

Therefore the block to true healing must lie within mankind’s collective disbelief. I believe we have healing beyond our imagination, yet mankind has not arrived at the place necessary for such healing to spontaneously and instantaneously occur throughout the world. So what are we doing wrong? And most importantly, what must we, God’s children, do to receive our inheritance of wholeness.

The answer can be found within a need for a foundational change in how mankind sees the world. We must move into our hearts. It seems modern man lives in his head and neglects the true healing found in the heart. We need proof, we need reason, we need to make sense of things. In my opinion we put too much trust in man’s reason. All the while we too often discredit miracles, faith, and we doubt our intuition—we minimize what we know to be true in our hearts. While I do not seek to discredit science or human reason, I do believe we need a proper balance between human reason and faith in God. Looking around at the world it seems mankind has much room to grow in our hearts—the place we enjoy unity with God—and the place where our belief matures.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. —Psalm 51:10

No remedy could ever heal what only Love can heal. Through pain we can experience the beauty of healing, through tragedy we can learn the grace of forgiveness, through trials we can become wise and through lost love we can learn how to allow God into the brokenness of our hearts. However, we must first believe God is faithful, we must grow in our prayer lives until earth is filled with continuous prayer to Him, and we must surrender to God our hearts until we have given Him our entire heart. The journey will foster in us a deeper belief, a belief where miracles simply happen, a belief where God’s Kingdom is on earth as it is in Heaven. Earth will be filled with whole and healed children of God because He wills it and because His Son came to testify to the Truth.

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” —Revelation 5:13

Sacred Heart of Jesus—have mercy on us.

acatholic.org/friday-1-8-2016-jesus-heals/

Summary of Key Concepts

Jesus the Divine Physician/Miracles

Questions to Consider

What would you say is the main area in your life that you have a hard time trusting in God’s love and mercy? What do you think you could do to help you build trust?
What storms in your life have you experienced when you felt as though Jesus was ‘asleep in the boat?’ Looking back, do you now see things differently?
Have you ever experienced a miracle, either first-hand or otherwise? How did that affect your understanding that Christ is the Lord of life?

JESUS THE GOOD SHEPHERD