Double vaccinated and boosted, I contracted Covid in April of 2022. And in spite of the supposed immunity conferred by three shots in the arm, I felt sick. Chills and fever and can’t-stand-up sick. Fuzzy-in-the-head, burning-in-the-throat, and exhausted-by-a-walk-to-the-kitchen sick.
So I turned to Advil and Nyquil . . . and Jesus. No, I didn’t experience a miraculous recovery. But I had begun to take Jesus as a healer more seriously in my life. Prayer was no longer a postscript to my medicinal regimen.
I believe that when Jesus walked on earth, he gave sight to the blind and calmed the seizures of an epileptic child. But for most of my adulthood I’ve behaved as if antibiotics, surgical procedures, and Lexapro had replaced Jesus’s healing work in the here and now. I’ve relegated his healing to another era…
Despite the proliferation of the healing narratives in the Gospels, many Western Christians have misunderstood the nature of God’s healing work. We have reduced healing to biomedical fixes and imagined healing as a way to manufacture idealized bodies. Not only do such reductions ignore Jesus as one who can still heal, but they distort our perspectives on what it means to be human.
Comment | To Be Made Well: Why modern health obscures what it means to be human.
Does it matter that Jesus of Nazareth healed a lot of people way back when? Do we still need that type of healing? Are there ways for us to access healing here and now? What does healing my body have to do with healing my community?
These are some of the questions I had a chance to consider today over at Comment. Here’s a teaser from the essay:
To read the full essay over at Comment Magazine, go here…
More with Amy Julia:
Book: To Be Made Well: An Invitation to Wholeness, Healing, and Hope
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