The healings that Christ performed in the Gospels, as we see in today’s reading, are complete: the woman with the flow of blood is healed completely of her hemorrhage and Christ raised Jairus’ only daughter from the dead completely, restoring her to life and demonstrating His power as God. Christ God, the Logos (Word) of God, Who spoke creation into being, sustains us all, triumphs over sin and death on our behalf, entering into death as man and defeating death as God, making a path for us to find healing for our souls and eternal life with Him.
But then we read in today’s Epistle the words of St. Paul that can confound us, “a thorn in the flesh was given to me” and concerning this thorn, St. Paul besought the Lord three times to take it away from him and God would not!
Why does God choose to heal some and not others? Why does He permit some to suffer terrible diseases while others enjoy health? Why do the righteous suffer much affliction while it often seems the godless don’t? These are some of the common questions we’ve all heard. It’s another version of the age-old question of, “Why does God permit bad things to happen to good people?”
To some, God may seem ‘capricious,’ unfair. We think of Job, who loses almost everything dear to him, including his children, and then loses even his own health. His wife then advises him to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9). To some, this may seem like the logical response to such terrible pain and suffering.
The fact is, for many, it’s easier to put their trust in medical science than in God, especially if it’s God they’re blaming for their illness and in their bitterness toward him; it’s easier to put their trust in the doctors than in God, knowing that some receive healing, while others do not. It’s easier to pop a pill than to prepare yourself spiritually for anointing in faith; it’s easier to rely on medical science as our culture does than to be among the few who believe in miracles of physical healing, let alone the spiritual healing of a sin-sick soul.
The truth is, God can work through medical science to bring about physical healing or He can heal without science. But the Church recognizes that true healing is ultimately more complex: physical healing involves not only the body, but also always involves the soul.
If one is physically fit but neglects the soul, what have they gained? In fact, Christ God asks this very question of us, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matt. 16:26). In other words, our physical bodies and our temporal pursuits will wear out, some sooner, some later, but they will in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “vanish away like smoke, The earth will grow old like a garment, And those who dwell in it will die in like manner; But My salvation will be forever, And My righteousness will not fail” (Isaiah 51:6).
Our Old Testament readings at Great Vespers for this Sunday give us some insights into answers to these questions as well, reminding us of what God has declared: “I, even I, am the Lord, And besides Me there is no savior. Indeed before the day was, I am He; And there is no one who can deliver out of My hand; I work, and who will reverse it?” (Is 43:11,13).
This gives us confidence because, brothers and sisters, we are all, to varying degrees sin-sick and in need of continued healing in the Lord. He alone is our Savior. He receives us as we are, broken, sick, diseased, even dying, and He gives us a future and a hope with Him. Christ gives us a new name, a new identity. We become adopted children of the living God, Who was, and is, and is to come. Medical science can fail us, our bodies can fail us, but a soul that is humble, that is open to God’s healing and growth in holiness and righteousness, in communion with God, a person striving to place Him first in life, will grow stronger and stronger in spirit, even if his or her body wears out like a garment.
New beginnings are always possible with God just as is His healing: He is the God of redemption, the God of those who want to be redeemed. He is the Savior of those who recognize their need for God, who put their trust in Him and “not in princes and sons of men,” as we sing at Vespers from Psalm 1. He is the Great Physician of our souls and bodies.
So yes, God can bring us healing, but while faith is necessary for healing, not everyone who approaches Christ God with faith receives healing. His healing remains a mystery. God sometimes allows us to suffer with various afflictions. These crosses can be our patient teachers, if we’re willing to bring Christ into the midst of our physical limitations and afflictions of body and soul. This means, we avail ourselves of anointing, regular confession, reception of the Eucharist, and, daily prayer, a life spent day by day and moment by moment with God the Holy Trinity in mind and heart. Then, by God’s grace, we find step by step healing for the sin-sickness of our souls even as our bodies may continue to demonstrate their mortality.
Let’s return to St. Paul, who besought the Lord three times to take his “thorn in the flesh” from him. What was God’s response to St. Paul? “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” As St. Paul puts it, he was allowed to suffer this affliction that he might continue on his upward path of Christ and not being “exalted above measure.” If God permits such “thorns” we can know that God does so to grow us in humility, to make us more like Him and capable of growth in faith and trust in Him.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” If everything always goes our way, if we have everything provided for us and perfect physical health, if there is no accountability for our sins, we may never come to the place of recognizing our need for the Savior of the world, the only Lover of mankind, our Lord and God Jesus Christ. In our weakness of body and/or soul, we can call out to God as our Savior, beseeching Him to save us, have mercy on us; we can learn to entrust ourselves to Him and prioritize the needs of our immortal souls, that is, our communion with Him who is life itself, over all else.
Whatever happens to our bodies, God assures us today that “the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them…” that, “Those who trust in him will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with him in love, because grace and mercy are upon his elect, and he watches over his holy ones” (Wisdom, 3:1,9). May the Holy Unmercenary Saints, the holy Physicians without silver, intercede for us before the merciful Lord for the healing of our souls. And may the same Lord God who healed the woman with the issue of blood because of her faith and raised from the dead the only daughter of Jarius, Jesus Christ, also heal us from our sin-sickness and all our infirmities to the glory and honor of His holy Name.
