One of the families my family loves the most has also experienced the most suffering. Over one hundred times the most amazing parents have taken their most wonderful children to the hospital for the most awful surgeries and treatments. On the occasions when we have visited them, it is overwhelming to see all of the suffering that the children are enduring.
How about you? What sickness or illness do you, or someone you love, struggle with?
God is the living God, and through being very bad we have brought sin, sickness, suffering, and death into the world He made “very good”. Everyone wishes things were different and that someone could rule over the sickness that rules over them.
The Bible promised that when Jesus came, he would rule over sickness. At the beginning of His public ministry in Luke 4:18-19 Jesus quoted Isaiah 61:1 saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
In the Old Testament, to the best of my research, no one who was born blind was healed and received their sight. But, the most common miracle that Jesus performed was giving sight to the blind (Matthew 9:27–31;12:22–23;15:30–31; 21:14; Mark 8:22–26; 10:46–52; Lk 7:21–22; John 9).
In John 9, Jesus heals a man who had been blind from birth. In John 9:3 He reveals that this miracle was so that, “…the works of God might be displayed in him.” When Jesus healed this man’s blindness He was revealing Himself as our glorious King, and revealing the glorious nature of His coming Kingdom. When Jesus came the first time, He came to die and rise to remove us from the penalty of sin. When Jesus comes the second time, He will cause us to rise from our graves and remove from us the presence of sin to never suffer from sickness ever again. The healing that the blind man experienced was a sneak preview of the future prepared for all of God’s people.
Who are you most looking forward to seeing healed in God’s Kingdom?