The Healing Church

Jesus healed. He touched lame legs and gave them strength. He reached his hand to blind eyes and gave sight. He touched weak minds and restored order. He forgave sins and cast out demons, setting people free from spiritual, emotional, and physical bondage. After Pentecost, his disciples performed the same work of holistic ministry.

The scripture clearly indicates that the church has been endowed with specific healing power. The reader of the gospels can readily perceive that Jesus invested a major portion of his ministry in healing the sick. Often, however, we have examined the individual healing miracles of Jesus without considering the theological meaning of Jesus' healing miracles and the ongoing significance of those acts in the church's life today.

In considering the healing miracles of Jesus and the profound emphasis he placed on wholeness, we must ask what Jesus wished to communicate through his healing works in people's lives. That is best answered in the context of more basic assumptions about the meaning of Jesus' overall ministry in and to the world.

Jesus was sent from God to usher in a new order of creation, restoring the wholeness which God originally bestowed upon the creation but which was shattered by the Fall. The resulting chaos and confusion is our partial lot until the end time; but God sent Jesus to begin a new order in our midst.

Shalom is the biblical word—and a potent symbol—for the personal and corporate wholeness in God's original creation. Through the power of Christ's death and resurrection, true wholeness can be recreated out of the chaos which reigns on this earth. Old Testament insights into the threat of reigning chaos and God's promise of shalom, expressed powerfully in the servant songs of Isaiah as well as elsewhere, find their continuity and fulfillment in the life and ministry of Jesus (see Isaiah 65:17-25).

The healing miracles of Jesus, then, can be understood as some of the first signs of the new order Christ proclaimed and inaugurated. These miracles are inextricably bound up with the concept of the kingdom of God and can best be interpreted as the first fruits of the new kingdom. Jesus' healings are signs of the breaking in of the kingdom of God in all its power and point to the coming time when the new kingdom will be totally fulfilled.

Christ gave the gift of healing to the church as a source of power, to act as a channel through which God's healing may flow. Faith and healing are integrally related, as demonstrated in all the healings recorded in Scripture. However, faith itself is a gift of God and cannot be produced by an act of will. It is not a quantity to be measured but a gift to be sought through prayer. Faith is part of the healing process, whether it springs from the heart of the one seeking healing or the person or community interceding for him or her.

Some involved in ministries of healing believe that there is a particular power in corporate prayer for healing. Scripture gives certain precedents for this view, particularly in James 5 where it speaks of gathering the elders for anointing, the laying on of hands, and prayer. When healings occur they are profoundly uplifting to the whole life of the church because of their graphic and immediate evidence of God's love, grace, and power among believers. Since healing is a gift given to the whole church, any individual can begin to appropriate this gift on behalf of another. Frequently, we do not have because we do not ask.

In the New Testament, healing flowed from the fellowship of those who gave themselves to each other as Christ's body, the church. Charismatic theologians such as Morton Kelsey and Francis McNutt state that healing was a primary ministry of Jesus and his church, which fell into disrepute sometime during the Middle Ages when the sacrament of anointing the sick became merely a rite for the dying.

Kelsey, an Episcopal rector, researched his study of healing for 15 years. He believes Christians must return healing ministries to the ordinary life of a congregation and demystify the experience of being healed by God of one's infirmities, whether they are emotional or physical, congenital or accidental.

If the church is to reclaim its healing ministry, it must ask the question "what constitutes wholeness?" Wholeness is a dynamic process of working toward integration, toward harmony with oneself, with others, and with the creator. It is possible to know wholeness in the midst of a terminal illness such as cancer if one has reached a place of honesty and humility about oneself, a place of confession and forgiveness and the receiving of forgiveness. Wholeness does not simply mean a lack of physical or emotional symptoms. Although we strive for healing of troublesome symptoms, that manifestation of healing only occurs as a gift of God.

John Sanford, Episcopal priest and Jungian analyst, has written the provocative study Healing and Wholeness. Basing his arguments on the thinking of Carl Jung, he suggests that the cultural definition of health as adjustment and adaptation to cultural norms is false and needs revision. He reminds the reader that the whole society was sick in Nazi Germany, so that those who could not adjust or adapt to Hitler's views were not sick, but profoundly well. Sanford believes that life is a journey toward wholeness, but that wholeness is not the same thing as peace of mind. For Sanford, suffering is a necessary part of daily living and the process of becoming whole.

Suffering is a part of living. It always has the potential for transformation if, like Job and Paul, we are able to preserve our faith in the midst of it. No one is immune from suffering; on the contrary, the Scripture demonstrates that suffering serves a purpose in the lives of individuals. Sooner or later we have to examine the question of suffering, for it is painfully obvious that all who seek healing are not healed.

Healing and suffering bring us to the basic question of God's will. Although God's will remains the ultimate mystery, there are some aspects of it that are clear. God's will is dynamic, not static. God's will always calls the Christian to greater faith and hope. Regardless of the outcome of individual suffering, our primary calling is to be drawn into deeper relationship to God.

Ultimately, there should be no conflict. One can find resolution in the acceptance of this paradox: suffering exists side by side with supernatural healing. The faith and hope to pray for divine healing is not opposed to the faith and hope to accept what is given. But in both appeals we must always seek the transforming power of God's love.

People are not meant to embark on a journey toward wholeness alone. That is the basis of the gospel. The fellowship of believers exists so that we can move together toward healing and reconciliation.

Psychologist O.H. Mowrer understands early Christianity as a small group movement. Individuals confessed and made amends within their congregations. Christianity spread, he believes, because this practice was so redemptive and rehabilitative. Mowrer thinks people should return to living in community, fully under the judgment and forgiveness of one's family and friends. In this context religion could function literally as reconnection, reunion, and reconciliation.

In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

In confession, the break-through to community takes place. [Sin] withdraws [us] from the community ... Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart ... It is a hard struggle until sin is openly admitted. But God breaks gates of brass and bars of iron.

Personal transparency and sincerity within our daily lives can lead to freedom from the nagging fear of being exposed for who we really are. In the process we can expect growing energy and greater health. It is a hard struggle to confess to one another, Bonhoeffer says, but those who have tried it believe this approach is a certain path to wholeness.

A further implication of healing in the church's life lies in the role of individual lay people. Healing is not the territory of experts; people of faith are asking how they can become healing agents for God. Some are particularly called and equipped for a healing ministry, but every Christian can act as a healer in his or her own life and in those lives around him or her.

Morton Kelsey and Francis McNutt offer some practical suggestions for appropriating healing in our daily living: 1) sharing a call to a particular healing work with others, 2) seeking to know God personally, 3) praying for our own healing and that of others, and 4) offering ourselves to others for their healing. This parallels the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program—finding freedom in sharing one's confession of weakness and serving others still in bondage to their particular addiction.

In our enthusiasm for healing prayer, a word of caution seems wise. Since Jesus is the savior and healer, we must always seek his will as we consider praying for healing. Our primary task is to listen for God and to identify where, how, and if God may want to use us as we pray.

Whole person health care [the treatment of a person as a unity of body, mind, and spirit] is, therefore, the heritage of the church. We must reclaim our function as the primary mediator of healing in society. This is not an easy task. In order to become a healing church we must grant deeper and deeper access to one another. It will be necessary to sustain each other in this difficult process as we often battle against feelings of self-protective fear and revulsion. We must help one another to accept the brokenness we find in ourselves and each other so that we can engage in these much needed healing tasks.

What will it take to turn our local congregations into caring, healing communities where we are known one to another? We must pay a price for this style of living, just as in the intimacy of our family settings we are often subject to hurt and disappointment. But if we fail to risk this intimacy with one another we are settling for an impoverished church.

Several years ago some dear friends gave birth to a child with Down's syndrome. Their response to this crisis provoked many of their Christian friends. They asked God to heal their child outright. This was the deepest cry of their hearts to a caring God.

Through the years they have continued in their request. Although many have told them that there is a reason God allowed this sorrow to come their way and that they must not question God's wisdom, they have persevered in the belief that they can always ask their loving God to heal. They have been faithful in training their child to his fullest potential, while they wait in hope for indications of healing in whatever form they may appear.

I suspect that they were not wrong. I believe, in fact, that they have been profoundly obedient to preserve hope in God's intervention. Their whole family has experienced more wholeness in the midst of suffering and disappointment than those whose instruction was to "tough it out" in a manner more like stoicism than like Christian faith and hope.

As Saint Paul wrote, "For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face ..."(l Corinthians 13:12).

What keeps us from experiencing more of God's healing touch in our churches? Fear of disappointment seems much to blame. It is a great freedom to sense that healing, like faith, comes as a gift. We can ask for it, we should do everything we can to promote wholeness in our lives and in the world around us, but in the final analysis we wait in hope for a gift. If we have the courage to live in this expectant hope of God's healing, the church can step forward in the power given in Christ to mediate this healing in our broken world.

One remaining question in this discussion of faith and healing is the relationship of medical science to divine healing. Many have difficulty synthesizing the "wonder drugs" of modern health care with the scriptural injunctions of laying on of hands and prayer. Healing comes through physicians' hands as well as through prayer. These are not opposing forces to be pitted against each other but the fullest utilization of both the rational and the intuitive aspects of humanity.

Problems occur when we isolate and compartmentalize either source of healing. A wholly scientific approach lacks the resource of God's power, and a wholly spiritual approach overlooks God's confidence in human beings. The divine physician has authority over every tissue in our bodies. We must realize that all our illnesses are within reach of God's touch regardless of the medical, spiritual, or emotional treatment plan we follow.

Finally, becoming whole should never become a substitute for salvation, or a weapon with which we beat friends and family into an ever deeper sense of guilt and failure when they do not respond to traditional medical treatment. It is painful enough to be sick, and even more painful if others imply that those who are ill are not doing all they can to get at the roots of their sickness.

Yet in the midst of all these complex factors, wholeness in Christ is within our reach. Growth in Christlikeness and the love of God are the ultimate purposes of our lives. Being made physically, emotionally, and spiritually whole is a lesser goal, not the main reason for being.

Our lives are a journey toward wholeness, wholeness not to be experienced completely this side of paradise. God is the journey and the journey's end.

Karin Granberg-Michaelson was establishing a pastoral counseling center in Missoula, Montana, when this article appeared.