A HEALING FOOL
Frederick Buchner
April 1, 1985
The Gospels depict Jesus as having spent a surprising amount of time healing people. Although, like the author of Job before him, he specifically rejected the theory that sickness was God's way of getting even with sinners (John 9:1-3), he nonetheless seems to have suggested a connection between sickness and sin, almost to have seen sin as a kind of sickness. "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick," he said. "I came not to call the righteous but sinners." (Mark 2:17)
This is entirely compatible, of course, with the Hebrew view of man as a psychosomatic unity, an indivisible amalgam of body and soul whereby if either goes wrong, the other is affected. It is significant also that the Greek verb sozo was used in Jesus' day to mean both to save and to heal, and soter could signify either savior or physician.
Ever since the time of Jesus, healing has been part of the Christian tradition. In this century it has usually been associated with religious quackery or the lunatic fringe, but as the psychosomatic dimension of disease has come to be taken more and more seriously by medical science it has regained some of its former respectability. How nice for God to have this support at last.
Jesus is reported to have made the blind see and the lame walk, and over the centuries countless miraculous healings have been claimed in his name. For those who prefer not to believe in them, a number of approaches are possible, among them:
1. The idea of miracles is an offence both to man's reason and to his dignity. Thus, a priori, miracles don't happen.
2. Unless there is objective medical evidence to substantiate the claim that a miraculous healing has happened, you can assume it hasn't.
3. If the medical authorities ...
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