Christ Our Healer

Desperation

A pastor once visited a clinic in a rural part of South America. While waiting, he noticed a young mother sitting in the corner, clutching a little boy who looked barely alive. His breathing was shallow, his head limp on her shoulder. She had walked over six miles barefoot, carrying him the entire way.

When the clinic director asked her why she didn’t send for help sooner, her answer was simple: “When your child is dying, you don’t wait for help to find you. You go until you find the one who can heal him.” The boy received immediate treatment and recovered within days.

The pastor later said he never read the story of the woman with the issue of blood the same way again. That mother embodied the same truth:

Desperation becomes faith when you believe the healer is worth the journey.[1]

I love that testimony! A determined mother…the availability of a healer…healing.

The World Still Needs the Healer

Hebrews 2:14–15 NIV

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Christmas celebrates the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ our Lord. The writer of Hebrews powerfully understands the mercy and grace of God who willingly became flesh and blood with the purpose of breaking the power of death. He is our supreme healer! …and our world needs healing.

Isaiah 53:4 NIV

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

In the Gospel narratives the process of healing itself is never the most important element. It is rather the fact that this is a manifestation of the power of Jesus which makes plain the in breaking of God's Kingdom into a suffering world - in the person and the activity of Jesus, God's Kingdom is coming. The real miracle lies beyond the one which is immediately evident in the healing. In fact, the New Testament exercises a remarkable degree of sobriety in reporting the details of Jesus works of healing.[2]

Jesus is The Healer

To get an idea of the importance of Jesus as The Healer we can just simply look at the body of content that we find in the Gospels. If we took the Gospels and excluded the sections that deal with the crucifixion and resurrection, we would find that 47% of the Gospel is describing accounts of healing. “Ministering to those who were sick and distraught was important to Jesus, and his first interpreters knew that.”[3]

It is also clear that the authors of the NT wanted us to recognize Jesus as having the power to heal.

Jesus Heals a Woman

One of these healings was a woman who had been in distress for 12 years.

Luke 8:42–44 NIV

because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

This woman is typically described as the woman with the issue of blood. How would we like to be remembered by the illness that we had? Without getting gross… “the man with bad breath” or “the woman with a limp” …you can imagine much worse. My point is the illness is the manifestation and, yes, it needs to be addressed but imagine her desperation. “No one could heal her” we are told. Maybe we could better name her, “A Woman without Hope”, that is…. until Jesus.

Jesus Heals a Man

Another healing involves what my Bible describes as “a man born blind”:

John 9:1–7 NIV

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

In this story we have Jesus and the disciples traveling and run into a blind guy. The detail is added that he has been blind since birth. The next detail that we get is because the guy has been blind since birth, it is assumed that his sickness is the direct result of sin. I assume this was what his neighbors thought. His physical deformity is the inability to see but the societal label that he carries is “guilty guy” for something that never happened. But there is The Healer who doesn’t just touch the physical but heals the brokenness of the soul as well.

Jesus Raises the Dead

Let’s consider one more healing…this one is overdue. My Bible simply labels it “Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead”:

John 11:38–44 NIV

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

The man has been dead for 4 days. In the verses before these Jesus tells people straight up that this sickness had a purpose and that purpose was “for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it”. And he was: Lazarus walked out of the grave (vv. 43, 44).” John Driver writes, “The reality of the power of God that rested upon Jesus was demonstrated as he reassembled the shattered pieces of fragile human life.”[4]

I like that! Who among us has not realized the fragility of life? Jesus can reassemble the shattered pieces of fragile human life. Could we re-title this Jesus Reassembles a Dead Man?

I want to emphasize right here that these healings are an essential part of who he is. They are unique to him, and they are inseparably connected to him. They are not stock miracle stories floating around in the literature of the time and then plugged into the “Jesus story” in order to make it more gripping. Rather, the miracles are powerful expressions of the dynamic of God in Jesus Christ.[5]

We shouldn’t focus on the hem of His garment, the spitting in the dirt, the speaking to a man inside a tomb…the focus is that Jesus is The Healer. He is God incarnate. He is the Messiah.

When John the Baptist heard about Jesus healings, he sent a couple of his disciples to check it out:

Luke 7:20–23 NIV

When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’ ” At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

Of course, this message would convince John the Baptist that his prophecies were being fulfilled through his cousin, Jesus. John’s ministry would decline while Jesus would take center stage.

I mentioned last week that I sought the Lord about what to teach about Christmas this year. Last week was that He is our Victor. This week is about recognizes Him as The Healer. All of the Gospels describe Jesus’ healing activity. His healings and exorcisms are sure signs that the messianic age is dawning and that Jesus is Messiah.[6]The Gospels demand that we recognize Jesus as The Healer.

Ok, we see it…now what do I do with it?

You Can Be Healed

So, here’s the question that naturally rises out of all of this: If Jesus really is the Healer… what do you do with that? Because it’s one thing to admire His healings. It’s another thing to bring Him your pain.

For some of you, the healing you need is obvious. It has a name. A diagnosis. A test result. A surgery date. You’ve been praying. You’ve been waiting. You’ve been hoping.

And for others of you, the healing you need is quieter—but just as real. You’re carrying grief that hasn’t healed. A betrayal that still bleeds. A shame you’ve never talked about. A fear that’s been calling the shots in your life.

Like the woman in Luke 8, you’ve tried everything else first. Like the man born blind, you’ve been mislabeled, misunderstood, maybe even blamed. Like Lazarus, some part of you feels like it’s been dead for a long time.

And here’s the tension we all feel: What if I come to Jesus and nothing changes? That fear keeps many people at a distance. But notice this: No one Jesus healed had certainty—only desperation. They didn’t know how. They didn’t know when. They didn’t even always know why. They just knew who.

· The woman didn’t understand the mechanics of healing—she reached anyway.

· The blind man didn’t argue theology—he obeyed anyway.

· Lazarus didn’t cooperate—Jesus called him anyway.

And that’s where this gets personal. You don’t need perfect faith. You don’t need the right words. You don’t need to understand the process. You just need to decide whether Jesus is worth the journey.

Some of you need to bring your pain to Him for the first time. Others of you need to bring it back again—because disappointment made you stop asking. And let me say this carefully and honestly: Healing doesn’t always mean immediate physical restoration. But it always means that Jesus meets us with His presence, His power, and His purpose.

Sometimes He heals the body. Sometimes He heals the soul. Sometimes He heals us enough to carry what hasn’t changed yet.

But Christmas reminds us of this truth: God did not stay distant from our suffering. He stepped into it.

So the question isn’t: “Can Jesus heal?”

The question is: Will you bring Him what hurts?

We Need to Go Out and Heal

So, here’s what this means for us as a church. We are not just people who believe Jesus can heal. We are people who run to Him with our pain —and help others do the same.

We become the kind of church where:

· People don’t have to pretend they’re okay

· Desperation is welcomed, not judged

· Prayer is our first response, not our last resort

Because if Jesus is still the Healer, then this should be the safest place to hurt. And we don’t just pray for healing—we participate in it.

· We bring hope to the hopeless.

· We walk with the hurting.

· We speak life where others have given up.

Because the same Jesus who healed then is still healing now.

Christmas tells us that God came close. The Gospels tell us He healed. And our lives should tell the world that the Healer is still here.

So this Christmas, we don’t just celebrate a baby in a manger. We worship Christ our Healer.

And we come to Him—

· with our pain,

· with our need,

· with our desperation—

· believing that He is still worth the journey.

[1] ChatGPT. (2025). Sermon illustration about someone seeking healing and receiving it. Unpublished illustrative narrative created at the request of the user (Mark Gardner).

[2]Driver, John. Understanding the Atonement for the Mission of the Church. 1986. Herald Press. Page 84.

[3]Ronald A. N. Kydd, Healing through the Centuries: Models for Understanding (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 2.

[4]Ronald A. N. Kydd, Healing through the Centuries: Models for Understanding (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 4–5.

[5] Ronald A. N. Kydd, Healing through the Centuries: Models for Understanding (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 2–3.

[6] Driver, John. Pg 83.