Saturate: The Church as Hospital (Matthew 9:9-12)

Chad Richard Bresson

The Table of Los Fresnos

Sermons • Sermon • Submitted 3 months ago • Presented 3 months ago

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We need healing

Every year, Americans spend an average of $13,000 a year on healthcare. Per person. $13,000. Obviously, we don’t all spend all of that money at once, but that’s the average. The average American will spend about 12 years being sick during a lifetime. Most of that comes at the end of life, but still… Americans spend more time being sick than much of the rest of the world. We’re living longer, but we’re a little sicker.

Being sick is a fact of life. Nothing reminds us of our mortality than sickness, and with the pandemic, we were certainly reminded of what disease can do. And because disease is such a fundamental part of being human, few topics are more controversial than disease, sickness, and injuries. Ever wandered into a conversation about COVID? Or a conversation about what the church’s relationship is with disease and sickness? Things can get heated pretty quickly.

Today we continue our series, Saturate… more of Jesus for more of life.. and we continue to ask the question: What is the church? We’ve answered that the church is the gathering where Jesus is in Word and Sacrament, and the church is a family. Today, we’re going to look at the church as a hospital. In the book of Matthew, we find that Jesus and his disciples are on mission. They are travelling from town to town bringing the Good News of the Kingdom of God in the person of Jesus.

We read the verse moments ago:

Matthew 9:35 Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom..

Jesus came to earth to save His people from their sins and that is happening through the teaching and preaching of Jesus. Jesus sees the crowds. He has compassion on them. He commissions his disciples to do the same as he is doing… teaching and preaching about the Good News of the kingdom to crowds that are distressed and dejected.

But that isn’t the whole story. We would be doing the biography of Jesus a terrible disservice and we wouldn’t be telling the whole truth if we just left it at that. Jesus is ushering in the reign of God and in doing so, he is directly challenging the devil himself… ruler of darkness. In the Old Testament, guys like Isaiah and Ezekiel promised that when the Messiah shows up, he will begin upending the world order.. he will begin making all things new. And Matthew wants us to see that’s exactly what happens when Jesus shows up.

Yes, there is forgiveness of sins. But there’s also this:

Matthew 9:35 Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness.

The inbreaking of heaven on earth includes the roll back of disease and sickness. In fact, this is a summary statement. Already in this chapter, as Jesus is going from town to town, he’s healed someone who was paralyzed, raised a girl from the dead, healed a woman who had been sick for years, healed two blind men, and drove out a demon from a man. Everything that Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel said would happen, is happening. The lame walk. The blind see. The dead are raised. The very creator of the universe, the One who created life itself, is the One who heals and sets everything straight again. Matthew is answering the question for his audience around 30 years after Jesus… was Jesus really the guy? Well, yes, he’s the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, the One who was promised precisely because he is reversing disease and death. He is life itself.

This problem of disease and sickness and injury all started with Adam and Eve in the garden. Before Adam and Eve sinned, the world was without disease and sickness. There once was a world where mosquitoes didn’t carry disease and death. Their sin brought all of it into the world. And now, the Messiah, Jesus is beginning to reverse it in a new creation. The kingdom of God is here in the Person of Jesus and that means that this King is bringing physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.

Too often we come to this passage and we focus on all the cool stuff, or what we think is all the cool stuff. The miracles Jesus performs become some sort of Las Vegas show or circus act. Lookie what Jesus can do. He’s proving he is God. Well, he is, but not in the way that Matthew wants us to see. Yes, these miracles are pointing to Jesus as being more than just a man, but in all of them it is Jesus’ humanity that is at the heart of the stories. Jesus feels compassion for people because they are distressed. Healing makes them whole… a whole person, physically and spiritually.

In every single one of these stories, Jesus is creating faith and providing forgiveness. That’s the stuff of the new creation. It’s all part of his healing… teaching, preaching, and healing because without the Word and Sacrament and promise, the physical healing has not accomplished what is intended. In fact, then it really is a Las Vegas show. Do we understand that all of these who were healed in Matthew 9 eventually died? And most likely some of them died because they got sick. Their healing were not ends of themselves, but were something bigger.

The physical healing signifies and points to spiritual healing. That’s the import of physical healing. Jesus isn’t just healing to heal. Jesus wants us to see that physical healing is symptomatic of a bigger problem.. a world that is wracked by sin and death and in need of forgiveness and reconciliation. Physical healing points to the promise of salvation from sin and death. And physical healing also points to the eventual healing of the created order at the end of time… a world without pain, tears, and suffering and death.

Mythbusting pop healing

It’s at this point, it’s probably good just to note some of the myths that are prevalent in American Christianity… and it really is American Christianity. You do not find these myths around the rest of the world, and where you do find it, it’s because Americans have been exporting bad theology that cannot be found in the Bible. And we’re not going to go over them all… I started listing how many myths there are around healing and we just don’t have the time. But here are some of them.

First… don’t let anyone ever tell you that healing is based on whether you have enough faith or pray hard enough or are obedient enough. I can’t stress enough how bad this is. I can’t tell you how many people’s lives have been ruined by that myth. There is no place in the Bible that says healing is based on having enough faith, praying hard enough, or obeying enough. Healing is a gift. Healing is grace. No strings attached. You can’t earn it. It is not something that is deserved. God heals in his time and his way and it’s not based on anything we are doing or we’re not doing. People that tell you you need a certain kind of faith or a certain amount of faith in order to be healed are frauds.

Second, we don’t know why you’re sick. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that they know why you’re sick. This is tied to multiple myths about sickness and disease. One claim is that demons are responsible for all sickness, disease, and injury. That’s not true. The Bible doesn’t say anything of the sort. Demons and the devil can be responsible for some sickness… and even when they are, we have no way of knowing. God never tells us why we are sick. He doesn’t give us an explanation.

Another myth that is popular and closely related… your sickness cannot be tied to sin or even a specific sin. Sin may be involved, but God doesn’t tell us. And he doesn’t expect us to read the tea leaves to find out if our sickness is due to sin. God is silent on the why’s of our sickness. We aren’t supposed to know. Unless you can find a verse in the Bible saying “Chad was sick on December 24, 2022 because he yelled at his wife”, there’s no way to know. God doesn’t tell us. Jesus said as much when he told the crowds to stop trying to figure out “why” bad things happen. Bad things that happen are meant to point us to our need for Jesus. And that’s it.

And this goes for another myth… one I see on the internet all of the time and it really is narcissism that has been Christianized… your healing isn’t because God has something else in mind for you… or that you’ve been spared death because God needed your testimony of healing. You and I experience healing because of God’s grace and compassion and for us to have confidence in Jesus. Yes, we rejoice when there is healing. Yes, healing is something to be celebrated… there is the new creation on display in a snapshot of time. But, again, we cannot and do not know the “why” of healing.

The last one… God doesn’t promise healing in this lifetime. There are no promises of a miracle. Do miracles happen? Of course they do. But they aren’t based on anything we do, and they aren’t promised. Does God heal? Of course he does. But there are no promises that he will? We pray for healing. God listens and answers those prayers, according to his will, not according to any promise he has made. And we give thanks when we have healing. But any healing, even when it is complete, is temporary. Even when I’m over some sickness, I’m still here with this body that is eventually going to break down and die.

God promises healing

The question then is… well, what does God promise?

God promises two things:

God promises physical healing… eventually

God always promises spiritual healing in the here and now

You know what God does guarantee about healing? Jesus is constantly breaking into fallen creation in Word and Sacrament. The preaching of His Word.. Jesus arrives and provides healing. The receiving of the Sacrament in the Lord’s Supper… provides spiritual healing. I always have to laugh when I here some place promising miracles of physical healing… we have a miracle here every Sunday… in the preaching of the Word and The Table. We can taste, see, hear, and feel a miracle every time we gather.

Forgiveness is the miracle we need

Do we understand that forgiveness is the miracle we need? One of the big problems of the way these healing stories of Jesus are understood is that the emphasis is not on the physical healing. People presume that physical healing is their greatest need. It’s not. We need forgiveness of sins more than life itself. Jesus is pointing to this when he tells the people he has healed that their sins are forgiven. The physical healing is there in that time and season to point us to the bigger need: forgiveness and reconciliation with God. So Jesus shows up here on Sundays to give us what we really need: forgiveness, life, and salvation.

The church is a hospital

That brings us to our last point. Here in our text… it’s not just Jesus healing...

Matthew 10:1 Summoning his twelve disciples, he gave them authority over unclean spirits, to drive them out and to heal every disease and sickness. Jesus sent them out with these instructions: Proclaim, ‘the kingdom of God has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, drive out demons.

This task of preaching, teaching, and healing isn’t just Jesus. It’s the entire church. The church gathers on Sunday to provide healing in forgiveness. And then the healing we receive here, is to become healing for others. Physical healing? Maybe. Remember, it’s not guaranteed. But what spiritual healing. The church is in the healing business… providing hope and healing to people who are hurting and without hope.

There are so many people who are hurting. In emotional and spiritual pain. And way too many people don’t believe church is the answer… they don’t believe Jesus has what they need. And they believe that because too often, the church isn’t a place of healing, but a place of hurt and pain and hatred. That can’t be us. Either here or during the Mondays through Saturdays. There is no one who came here this morning that doesn’t need healing of some kind. We’re all in need of Jesus and his cure for sin. We’re all in need of Jesus and the grace he provides for anxiety.

Do your neighbors see your home as a safe place? A place of healing and hope? That is what we take with us when we leave here having experienced Jesus and his healing. The church is a hospital.. not just on Sundays, but on Mondays through Saturdays wherever we live, work, learn and play. When we saturate Los Fresnos with Jesus, we are saturating Los Fresnos with healing. and hope.

Here’s Jesus’ promise for you and for your neighbor:

Matthew 9:12–13 Jesus said, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus came for sick people… sinners. You and me. Sinners who are sick with sin, and anxiety and hopelessness… we need a doctor. We need Dr. Jesus. He promises to give sinners the healing they need in forgiveness and rest. Promises. Guaranteed. Jesus is the doctor. The church is his hospital where he is constantly providing us with the healing that we need… the healing our neighbors need.

Let’s Pray.

The Table

This table is where we find healing. Jesus promises to give us life, salvation, and forgiveness all of which provide healing and reconciliation.

Benediction

Numbers 6:24–26 ““May the Lord bless you and protect you; may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.” ’”

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