Healing begets healing.
Those were the words that came to me last week as I looked at a story in the gospel of Luke where Jesus heals a man with leprosy. Afterward, the man is so excited that he tells everyone what has happened, which prompts more people to come to Jesus for their own healing.
Scholars write about how the Jewish people saw death and disease as contagious. All sorts of people were considered ceremonially unclean and needed to separate and purify themselves—bleeding women, lepers, anyone who came in contact with a dead body. But Jesus offers what commentators call a “reverse contagion.” Jesus doesn’t become infected with leprosy. Instead, the leper becomes “infected” with Jesus’ wholeness.
There’s an old saying, “Hurt people hurt people.” Harm is contagious. Destruction breeds more destruction.
But I wonder if the inverse is also true. That healed people invite other people to be made well. Healing begets healing.
My next book, To Be Made Well, comes out in about THREE weeks. It is a book that is all about healing, and we—individually and collectively—are in need of healing. I hope and pray this book is a catalyst for us to receive the transformative healing love of God in our bodies, minds, spirits, and communities. What was true in Jesus’ day is true now. God’s healing is still available for us. And healing begets healing.
Read more with Amy Julia:
- To Be Made Well: An Invitation to Wholeness, Healing, and Hope
- We All Need Healing
- How to Receive Healing Series
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