Does God heal today?

In Luke 7:18ff, John the Baptist send messengers to Jesus to ask if he was indeed the promised Messiah. Jesus responded by saying: “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and good news is preached to the poor.” This is of course an allusion to Isaiah 35:5-6 and 61:1, and refers to events which are prophesied to take place in the year of the Lord’s favor, that time when God would rule in a new and powerful way. As we know, Jesus’ preaching was about the coming of the Kingdom of God. Wherever Jesus carried this message, there were signs which accompanied it – blind receiving sight, lame walking, deaf hearing and leprosy cured. As people who continue to live in, sacramentally signify and spread God’s end time Kingdom, we ought to expect physical healing to have an ongoing significance among us. This will take the form of the miraculous, and the medical. All blessings of health come from the hand of God, and all true knowledge is God’s knowledge.

‘Is it always God’s will to heal?’ I would have to answer yes; God’s will is for his humanity to be completely liberated from the effects of the fall, including sickness and death. So when we ask for healing for ourselves or someone else in our present age, we can be certain that we are asking for exactly what it is God wants for us. However, we live in an eschatological mid point (already, not yet). So perhaps the question is better put, ‘Will God heal me now in this present age, or will he wait for the consummation?’ We cannot live in denial that we still stand with one foot in “this age.” Even those people Jesus himself healed fell ill again and died. The mystery of who experiences as foretaste the gift of certain special benefits through Christ’s death and resurrection in our present age and who does not cannot be explained, and pastorally I have no answer. What I can reassure those seeking divine healing of is that they are indeed asking for exactly what their loving Father wishes to give them. The only question is ‘When?’, and the only response to ‘later’ is to carry on, whatever the circumstances, with faith and hope in the knowledge that “on that day”, “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”