And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.—Matthew 21:14
Mind and body. Reason and miracle. Jesus’ ministry included both, this final week as always.
In the clean-swept Temple He taught and He also healed. He asked men to understand, and He performed what surpasses understanding.
As the blind saw and the lame walked, cries of wonder echoed along the marble porticoes, and the crowd swelled till Temple authorities took fresh alarm.
Even more than brilliant teaching, miracles will always draw throngs. Wednesday’s healing miracles kept the city in a fever of excitement.
I’ve felt that excitement on the Wednesdays of my own life. I’ve seen it in the great arenas where today’s charismatic healers draw their thousands. I’ve known the ecstatic gratitude when, for instance, my husband was instantaneously healed of cancer.
This fourth day in Holy Week represents those times when our natural lives touch the supernatural. When here on earth we are caught up in the divine mystery.
But still we are not at the best. We stand wonderstruck but short of Easter. How strange it is, this journey we’re embarked on. On Wednesday we seem to have arrived at the very throne room of God—and yet the road leads on, out into the dark.
How many of those who were healed there in the Temple followed Jesus to the end? “Though he had done so many signs before them,” John writes of that last week, “yet they did not believe in him.” (John 12:37, RSV)
For Jesus, healing was always a sign, a pointer to something greater and better.
Better than health? Greater than an end to pain? Yes, He answers, follow Me and see! Unspeakable pain lay just ahead for Jesus, but He embraced it for the sake of that better thing. The road to Easter does not remain on the mountaintop of the miracle. It leads down, through death to life everlasting.
Allelujah! Thank You for the healing that points beyond.
