The Book Of John | The 7 "Signs" And The 7 "I AM's" Of JesusExemplo

“Healing of the Paralytic at Bethsaida”

Naaman was a powerful yet leprous commander for the King of Syria in the time of Elisha. Leprosy made him unclean, and the numbness from the disease killed parts of his body to all feeling, while on the same token, the murderous pain of the disease awakened him senselessly to the agony of cuts, broken bones, and deteriorating limbs etc.

Naaman needed healing, but Naaman was also an arrogant and proud man. His position convinced him that he needed to do something special in order that God might heal him. When he came to Elisha for assistance from God, Elisha pointed to a stinky stream in which Naaman was to bathe in order to receive healing from the Lord. For Elisha, healing was not about the means for healing, it was about the power of faith in the Maker of Heaven and Earth. For Namaan, it was all about being healed, and all that mattered to him was that he be healed as a result of doing something heroic.

When Namaan came to his senses and received his humble method of healing, he learned something very important about being healed. God used his outside sickness to demonstrate to him what still lived inside him—arrogance and sin. Naaman however, came to some degree of humility, and God deemed it fit to heal Naaman only as a way of showing Naaman that humility before God brings the truest healing—it’s a healing of the heart.

Think about this aspect of healing as you read about Jesus’ third sign in the healing the man at the Bethsaida on the Sabbath. Consider not only the healing and its humility, but also the controversy that arose over the matter of the Sabbath. It would seem that the Jews too battled with this view of what is inward, and what is outward, and Jesus’ miracle here is aimed at the sickness of the heart more than at the sickness of the body.

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