Kevin Edlefson - April 26, 2020
Is Jesus Willing?
Jesus encounters a leper who is convinced of Jesus’ healing power, but not convinced if Jesus would be willing to use that power for someone like him. What does this teach us about how we should come to Jesus?
From Series: "The Healer - Encountering Jesus in a Sick World"
The gospels report many different stories of Jesus bringing healing to someone. Each story is unique, with Jesus offering the restoration that this person required, which was often much more than physical healing. The Greek verb, sozo, that is translated ‘to heal’ can also be translated as ‘to save’ or ‘to restore.’ In this series, we will consider these different encounters in all their uniqueness, hearing imaginative first-person accounts from those that Jesus healed. In particular, we’ll consider the questions that Jesus asks in these encounters, and the questions he asks us now. We aren’t trying to create a pattern or template for healing, but noticing the many ways that God meets us in our need with his sozo power. Ultimately, we see that these individual healings in the gospels, as well as the continued work of healing and restoration that God is doing in our lives and in our world now, are all signs of the greater restoration that God is bringing about through the death and resurrection of Jesus. For God is not content to merely heal individuals of specific issues while we remain in a sick world that continues to bring us harm. His goal is nothing short of establishing a new world, bringing about creation-wide healing, and inviting us into life in the kind of world that God always intended. We can already see signs of this new world, which Jesus calls the Kingdom of God, but the fullness of that life is yet to come.