If You Want To

If You Want To

A man with leprosy approached Jesus. He knelt before him, worshiping. “Lord,” the man said, “if you want to, you can make me well again.” Jesus touched him. “I want to,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared. –Matthew 8:2-3

I still get a lump in my throat when I read these verses. I remember coming upon it after Hope died. In my sadness, I read these verses and heard Jesus saying to the leper, “I want to.” But I also heard its echo in my ears—Jesus saying to me, “I did not want to,” and my pain increased. It hurt my feelings as I pictured Jesus refusing me the miracle of giving me a whole Hope.

But even as the words echoed in my head and brought tears to my eyes, I knew something was wrong with that picture. It didn’t fit with the Jesus I was discovering in the Gospels. I knew something was wrong with my understanding of this story, so I had to struggle with it until I understood.

I began to examine all the miracles of Jesus’ ministry. John especially helped me as he clearly explained the reason that Jesus performed healing miracles: “Jesus’ disciples saw him do many other miraculous signs besides the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life” (John 20:30-31, emphasis added). I began to see that, while the miracles Jesus performed revealed his love and compassion for hurting people, the greater purpose of each miracle was to show us a picture of a deeper spiritual reality, a greater and more significant spiritual power. And our need for spiritual healing is more significant than our need for physical healing; we just don’t realize it.

In Old Testament times God used leprosy to illustrate the spiritual sickness of sin. In reaching out to heal the leper Jesus says, “I can heal you of the most destructive, deadly disease in your life—the disease of sin.” You and I have a disease much more deadly than leprosy or Zellweger Syndrome. While Zellweger can kill a person’s body, sin can kill the soul. So we come to him with our deadly disease of sin and say, “Lord, if you want to, you can make me well.” He turns no one away but looks at us lovingly and says, “I am willing.”

Sin Destroyer, I hear you saying, “I want to” to my request for healing my sin-sick soul. Help me to value your power to give life to my soul more than I value your ability to give life to my body.

DIGGING DEEPER