The Healing Ministry of Jesus

Although most people understand that we are medical missionaries, meaning that we work at a mission hospital and provide physical and spiritual care for people, it's not necessarily understood why we're passionate about this particular area of ministry.

Last year, during our Home Ministry Assignment, we explained to many people why we do what we do and now I'd like to write it down.

So, why do we do this medical missions thing?

Because it's close to the heart of Jesus.

Jesus healed people.  He spent a significant part of his time on this earth healing people - from the fever ailing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law to literally raising people from the dead and everything in between. 

Jesus was willing to touch people who shouldn’t be touched, such as the man with leprosy who begged for, and received, healing.  He was willing to incite the ire of the Pharisees and synagogue rulers by healing on the Sabbath, like the man with a shriveled right hand and the woman who’d been crippled for eighteen years.  He was willing to heal people He’d never even seen, like the centurion’s servant. Jesus even healed a person He didn’t know was asking for healing - the woman who’d been bleeding for twelve years and secretly touched his cloak. The ministry of healing was very close to the heart of Jesus.

This is why: healing points to the Father.  Jesus’s ministry of healing revealed God.  Healing was about physical healing, yes, but it was also about understanding spiritual truths, like our need to be forgiven of our sins, which Jesus taught when He healed the paralytic man that was lowered through the roof.  It opens our eyes to know more of God.

Here's another example: After Jesus raised the widow’s son back to life, “They were all filled with awe and praised God. ‘A great prophet has appeared among us,’ they said. ‘God has come to help his people’” (Luke 7:16).

Healing points to the Father.

Here's yet another example: A blind man named Bartimaeus was sitting along the roadside and cried out to Jesus to be healed.  Jesus did heal him, then and there.  “Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God.  When all the people saw it, they also praised God” (Luke 18:43).

Healing points to the Father.

When Jesus sent out the 72 ahead of Himself, one of the instructions he gave was, “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you.  Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you’” (Luke 10:8-9).

Healing reveals God.  Healing and God go hand in hand.

Furthermore, the healing ministry of Jesus didn’t stop when Jesus left the earth and ascended into heaven.  In Acts we read of the disciples in the early church who were given the power to heal people in Jesus’ name.  Peter and John healed a crippled beggar outside the temple, and Acts 5 tells us, “The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people….  People brought the sick into the streets and laid them on the beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.  Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed” (5:12a, 15-16).

Even after Jesus was resurrected and ascended into heaven, healing was still an important part of spreading the Gospel, and it still pointed to the Father and still revealed Him to people.

And it still does that today.

So why do we do medical missions?  Because healing matters, it’s close to the heart of Jesus, and there is a great need for healing.

When we originally started looking into where in the world we could go and serve in medical missions, we wanted to find a place that had an obvious need as well as great opportunities for impact.  The Lord showed us Africa.

It wasn't until after we'd already moved to Kenya that we discovered the following map created by the World Health Organization.  It shows the global distribution of physicians.

Regions in blue have anywhere from 20-40 doctors per 10,000 people.
Regions in dark red have 0-1 doctor per 10,000 people.

We felt all the more convicted and confirmed that doing medical missions in Africa was a good and worthwhile thing to do.

Because it's close to the heart of Jesus, and it points to the Father.  Anything like that is a good and worthwhile thing to do.

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Scripture references:

Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (Luke 4:38-39)
man with the shriveled right hand (Luke 6:6-11)
man with leprosy (Luke 5:12-15)
the paralytic (Luke 5:17-26)
centurion’s servant (Luke 7:1-10)
woman bleeding for 12 years (Luke 8:40-48)
woman crippled for 18 years (Luke 13:10-13)
blind Bartimaeus (Luke 18:35-43)