Excerpt from Matthew 12:15-21

"Many crowds followed him, and he cured all of them, and he ordered them not to make him known."

Reflection by Lillian Daniel

Why didn't Jesus want people to know he had the power to heal diseases? Why wouldn't you want to advertise something like that?

I suspect it was because he was already overwhelmed with requests for healing. It is amazing how many of the gospel stories are about Jesus healing someone. Crowds were always following him. Yes, they wanted to hear his teachings, but so many of them must have just wanted to be healed from an illness or to have him help someone they loved.

If Jesus had wanted to, he could have set up shop as a miraculous physician and had people lining up, even paying. Someone with that power could have spent every waking hour doing nothing else, for there is no shortage of physical suffering in the world. He could have put the money to a good cause, started a nonprofit, and hired consultants to maximize his efficiency as a healer.

But Jesus had more to do and more to say. He healed along the way, but he must have known that this was Band-Aid work, no pun intended. He could cure one person at a time, but it would do little to change the world and how we live in it. Eventually, he would pass away and humanity would be right back where it was.

So in his compassion he healed. But in his divine purpose he preached that, one day, we will meet God in a place where sin and death have no power. And in the meantime, he refused to let the people turn a savior into a service provider.

I don’t why he did that. I know how much I would love physical healing, not just for myself but for so many people I love. But in the end, Jesus even allowed himself to suffer physically on the cross, and took healing to a scale we can barely comprehend.

Prayer

We pray for healing for the people we love and for ourselves, healing of mind and body and spirit. And we thank you, Christ, for your healing work, which we may only recognize on the other side of the veil.  Amen.

About the Author Lillian Daniel is the senior minister of the First Congregational Church, UCC, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She is the author, with Martin Copenhaver, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.

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