I want to tell you something that happened to me over 50 years ago, when I was a student. I was travelling by bus from Oxford to London. Beside me sat a tall handsome, bearded and turbanned man, whom I assumed was Indian. I had lent this stranger a magazine, and was wondering if I might strike up a useful conversation with him. At that moment he returned the magazine, and began to talk to me. Did I, he asked, know his Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ?

As we talked about each of us had come to know the Lord, I learned that he was a son of the Archdeacon of Jaffna, in the north of what was then called Ceylon. He had gone into business, and was making a successful career for himself, when he had been struck down with a brain tumour.

At this point Christian friends had prayed for him. He'd been wonderfully and completely healed and his life saved. As a result, he'd given his life to Christ. Subsequently he'd been asked to pray for others who were ill – and they had been healed. Through this gift he'd been called into a full-time ministry of Christian healing and preaching.

Up till then, I had believed theoretically that God could still heal in answer to prayer – but this was the first time I had met someone healed in that way, and who also exercised this ministry of prayer for physical healing. Intrigued, I asked, When you pray for the sick, do you consider it equally important to tell them the gospel, so that they may put their faith in Christ? He assured me he did – but, as in his own experience, the healing of the body often brings about a commitment to Christ as Saviour and Lord.

Perhaps you can see from this that I was suspicious about an undue emphasis upon bodily healing – it had to be subordinate to preaching the salvation of our souls. Since then, however, I have come to see my attitude was mistaken. It is true – as Paul says in Romans 8 – that we, who have the Spirit, have him as the promise of more wonderful things to come – and meanwhile we groan inwardly as we wait for the day when our bodies will be made anew. (Romans 8:23)

Jesus' work of healing.

Nevertheless, when our God revealed himself in Jesus Christ, he showed himself as a God of love who cared and had compassion on us as we are – beset by daily anxieties, the prey of sickness, disease and death, and the assaults of the evil one. Read the Gospels and you cannot help but see this is true. Indeed, in Mark's Gospel – traditionally the preaching of Peter – there is as much, if not more, emphasis on Jesus' healing ministry, than on his teaching.

These works of healing were proofs of his authority and his deity – but even more – they were the bearers of the 'message' itself. And what was the real message of Jesus' works of power? That, in Christ, God had come to set men free from all that sin had resulted in – guilt and alienation from the life of God; sickness and disease; bondage to evil and to death. God's purpose for men is to restore to them what has been lost by their disobedience – to create a healed people in a healed world. This is the Good News of the Kingdom of God, for all who will submit to his reign in their lives.

When John the Baptist, in prison, sends to ask Jesus, Are you really the One to come, or should we expect someone else? Jesus replies, Go back and report what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor... (Matt 11:2-5) Jesus was quoting, in essence, what Isaiah had described as the blessings of the Age to Come. (Isa 35:5,6; 29:18; 32:3,4; 42:7; 61:1)

In Jesus, the blessings of eternity were breaking into time. Without this evidence of healing, of casting out of unclean spirits, of raising the dead – his words of forgiveness and of promise would never have had the same impact – just as his death on our behalf could never have been known as his dying in our place, for the forgiveness of our sins – if it were not that God raised Jesus from among the dead – accepted, vindicated, triumphant over our final enemy.

Was it to be the Church's work also?

The question, that we are left with, is – Did God leave the Church to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ in words only – or did he empower her to do so with word and deed? When, in his lifetime, Jesus sent out the Twelve, and later the Seventy, in pairs, to go to every town and place where he was about to go – he gave them power and authority over all unclean spirits, and to cure diseases, sending them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal.

In other words, Jesus got them to do exactly what he himself was doing. And before he died, he said to his disciples, I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. (John 14:12,13)

And those disciples took Jesus at his word – as we can see from the record in Acts. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came on them in power to be Jesus' witnesses. Peter addressed the crowds, saying – Jesus was a man accredited by God to you by works of power, signs and wonders, which God did among you, through him. (Acts 2:22) And from that day of Pentecost, we read, many wonders and signs were done by the apostles, of which the first one recorded is the healing of the cripple at the gate of the Temple. (Acts 3:1-10)

Why do you stare at us? said Peter, as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?.. By faith in the name of Jesus, this man, whom you see and know, has been made strong. It is Jesus' name, and the faith that comes through him, that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see. (Acts 3:12-16)

Their enemies could not deny the fact, and the church's prayer was, Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your arm to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. (Acts 4:29,30)

The record shows us that, in general, the Church had the expectation that healing and deliverance would accompany preaching. Plainly this was true for James: Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him, and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. (James 5:14,15)

Is it still our work today?

What are we to say then? – for whom this experience and expectation have almost gone? That healing was only meant for the earliest years of the Christian Church, to get it established? Many in the years since have taught just that, and the idea has become established that the day of miracles is past – apart, that is, from the greatest miracle of all – the miracle of new birth. That, of course, is not visible, and often only becomes apparent gradually, as a believer's lifestyle changes under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Which is easier: to say.. "Your sins are forgiven", or to say: "Get up and walk"? (Mark 2:9)

St Augustine, who lived in the second half of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th, lived at just the time when the Church was beginning to lose faith in God's power and willingness to heal. In his early writings, Augustine claimed that healing miracles had ceased in the Church, and were no longer necessary. But his experience altered things. Three years before his death he described cures which had changed his mind. In a two year period there had been nearly 70 attested miracles in his own diocese.

The ending of Mark's Gospel [as we now have it] tells us Christ's message to his Church, Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation... And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name... they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. (Mark 16:15-18) There is no indication here that this dimension of the Church's witness will cease, or that she ought to carry on Christ's work without it.

Why do we doubt this?

Why is our emphasis different from that of the New Testament? Why are we so sceptical of prayer for healing as part of the Church's commission here and now – and maybe view it as a distraction from preaching the gospel? May I suggest the following reasons why we may be sceptical:

1. We may view with distaste the self-advertisement of revivalists who promise 'miracles at every meeting' and we want nothing to do with such 'faith-healers'. We also know that there are such, who make no claim to Christian belief, and we don't want to be bracketed with spiritualists and others of that ilk. However, like Gresham's Law, which states that counterfeit money drives good money out of circulation – so we can allow the false to drive out the true, and obscure for us the practice and teaching of our Lord.

2. When sickness comes to us, we believe the Christ-like thing is to accept it as a cross sent from the Lord – that suffering is a blessing in disguise, a token of God's chastening love, rather than a 'messenger of Satan' from the kingdom of darkness. Perhaps this traditional teaching rests upon the clear understanding of the O.T. that sickness and death can result from man's disobedience, placing him outside the sphere of God's blessing.

Yet it also clearly taught that God's will for his believing people is health, rather than sickness. If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes... I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD who heals you. (Exod 15:26; 23:25; Deut 7:15; Psa 41:3,4; 103:3) Nor is it just a matter of obedience. God's mercy and love also shine through – as in the incident of the bronze snake. (Num 21:4-9)

Time and again forgiveness of sins is linked with bodily healing – just as Jesus links them in the healing of the paralytic. At the same time Jesus makes it clear that – whatever the state of mankind as a whole, with respect to sin and sickness – it is false to assume of an individual that his sickness is a direct result of his sin. As if the whole book of Job were not enough to teach us this – Jesus had to answer his disciples' question, Who sinned.. that this man was born blind? with the words, Neither this man nor his parents sinned. (John 9:1-3)

Instead Jesus always treats illness as a manifestation of the evil he has been sent to overcome – and that it belongs to the very character of God to show compassion and to bring healing. If we believe – as I certainly do! – that doctors and medicine come from God's loving provision – why should we think he does not normally want to heal us?

Of course, we know that – at the last, God will call us to come to him through death – the timing of which is entirely in his hands. And death is very often the outcome of illness (or the advances of old age). But, if we care deeply about younger sick and hurt people – do we think we have more compassion than God himself?

3. There are other reasons why we resort to medicine alone – and have less expectation of the power of God to answer prayer. The modern mind-set in the matter of miracles makes it difficult for many to believe in them. They are supposedly an idea from a superstitious past. This, of course, undermines all prayer and trust in God and his word. But even atheists have had to change their minds when healed miraculously! Here, of course, it needs to be said that faith in God for healing needs to be in the pray-er, but not necessarily in the sufferer. Much harm has been done by those who have told the unhealed that they lacked faith!

4. Perhaps the strongest reason deterring prayer for healing is that not all are healed. Whereas God undoubtedly forgives all who put their trust in Christ alone for salvation, and gives them new birth – he often does not confer physical healing in answer to prayer. So we don't ask – not wanting either ourselves or God to 'lose face'. But are we more concerned for God – or for ourselves?! God can undoubtedly take care of himself!

Jesus himself was not always able to heal – because of a community's lack of faith. (Mark 6:5) How then does he regard the faith of his church today? When, in effect, challenged along this line, Jesus pointed out that God is sovereign in this matter, as in all others: God comes in pure grace to the humble and undeserving. There were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian. (Luke 4:27)

As I implied when I quoted Paul's words from Romans 8 – we live in the in-between time. We can look back to Jesus' wonderful healing ministry – and we can look forward to that perfect healing and restoration that await Jesus' return. Meanwhile there is still sickness and death – and the mystery of permitted evil and suffering in a fallen world.

Yet if we are moved with compassion – who moves us? If we see men and women rejecting Christ and our God of love because of the suffering in this world – do we not burn with indignation that the enemy of men and the father of lies should 'get away' with his wickedness – and his work be attributed to God?

I believe we should be more ready to practise what James tells us to do – and more believing as a church that that is what God wants us to do – without in any way ruling out what medicine can do for us – for all healing comes from God. Let us ask God to deepen our trust in him, and to give his people wills that are obedient to his will.

                                                                                             Amen.