He Healed the Sick

He Healed the Sick
By Henry Ossawa Tanner

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments…and He healed them.
Matthew 4:23-25

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In the gospel of Matthew, we are told that, near the outset of His mission, Jesus “went about all Galilee…healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.” These words highlight the compassion and power of Christ to heal, and can serve as a beacon of hope for all who suffer. Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting, “He Healed the Sick,” painted shortly after Tanner had himself recovered from a very serious illness, captures this intersection of divine compassion with human frailty and invites us to reflect on the profound reality and expansiveness of Christ’s healing power.

In the book The Christ Who Heals, religious scholars Terryl and Fiona Givens beautifully point out that the Greek words translated as “save” and “Savior” in the New Testament are more literally translated as “heal” and “Healer.” Thus, the Givens conclude, “we could with equal linguistic justification call him Jesus Christ, Son of God, Healer of the World.” Christ’s mortal ministry of healing was a sign and signal of this more expansive mission to all mankind. As pastor Rick Warren has put it, “Every time Jesus healed someone, it was a foretaste of full healing to come.”

Christ’s divine promise of healing is an extension of the ‘rest’ that He promised His disciples would experience as they looked to the Master Healer. He said to His disciples, “Will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?” Though Gospel accounts tend to focus on Jesus’s power to heal those with physical infirmities, Christ’s healing mission extends beyond the physical, mending broken hearts and broken homes, and restoring peace to troubled minds and anguished souls. This healing is available to all who seek it. A.B. Simpson explained, “What Christ did here on earth, Christ is still doing in heaven. It is still His occupation to heal.”

In the face of illness and despair, let us hold fast to the promise of Christ’s healing power, remembering that His love knows no bounds, and His grace is sufficient for all our needs. As Jeffrey R. Holland has testified, none of us has “traveled beyond the reach of divine love.” May we, like the multitudes who sought Jesus in Galilee, bring all our sicknesses and sorrows to Him, trusting in His abiding love and healing touch.

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