Healing of Love

Have you ever done something for someone and chose to do it anonymously? It is always so much fun to bless someone anonymously and see how they respond. It is especially significant to bless someone and not receive a thank you because they don't even know it is you they should thank. Times like these are also great because it's genuinely about others' blessing that matters and not of ourselves and how it should always remain.

In John 5:1-14, we read a story about Jesus healing a man and how He chose to remain anonymous, at least at first. The story is there was a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. Along with many others, he would wait alongside a pool of water and wait for the angel of The Lord to come and stir up the waters. The Lord would send this angel at certain seasons to stir up the waters of the pool, and when it was done, the first person who would make it in the water would be healed of whatever was afflicting them. Jesus coming by one day saw the man that had been sick for 38 years and said to him, "Do you wish to get well?" and the man answered, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming another steps down before me." Jesus then said to this man, "Arise, take up your pallet and walk," and the man the Bible says took up his pallet and began to walk. This took place on the Sabbath, which made the Jews very angry because, according to the law, you were not allowed to carry your pallet on the Sabbath as he was. When the Jews went to this man, they asked why he was doing this, knowing what day it was, and he said the man who had healed him told him to take up his pallet and walk. When they asked him who this man was, he answered that he didn't know who it was because the Bible says Jesus had slipped away in a crowd. After this, Jesus found this man in the temple and told him, "Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may befall you." This man then went and told the Jews it was Jesus who had healed him. The Jews then became even angrier and were persecuting Jesus because of what had happened.

This story has many different lessons to learn from, and one is that when Jesus healed this man, he didn't know who he was until later. It was not about Jesus making Himself known in the beginning. It was simply that out of His love for him. He healed and did it at first anonymously. Later, when He met up with this man in the temple, His identity was revealed, and Jesus gave him some great advice to follow.

I have heard stories of people being healed who were "unsaved," and because of their healing, that was what led them to the Lord. Some may say you have to be a Christian before Christ heals you, yet Christ can and will do whatever it takes to win a soul for eternity. Christ loves each person and wishes for them to be made whole inside and out and spend eternity with Him forever. However, He chooses to reveal Himself as His own business and none of ours. The only thing that matters is that Christ does heal us inside and out, and it is out of His love for us that He does it, and when we see healing manifested, we need to rejoice.

Again, this story shows us that it was not about Jesus needing recognition in how great He was for healing this man, but rather out of His love for him. He healed him. It was about the healing itself. In our own lives, we can do things for the wrong motive, and that is when we get prideful, and doing things out of a prideful spirit is sinful. When we come into contact with others who need a blessing, we are to at least do what we can to meet that need, and if we can't do it anonymously, we need to do it in a humble and right spirit letting the blessing speak for itself not us. Doing things this way allows God and His love for others to be manifested through us, and isn't that the point? Just as in this story of this man, Jesus healed him out of His love for him not because He needed any recognition, just out of pure love. That is something we need to model to others as well.

From Gardens of Splendor by Gina Burns