healing and the kingdom

David Wayne, the JollyBlogger, posts NT Wright on the Purposes of Jesus' Healings. Excellent stuff and worth taking a look at the whole article. Bottom line is that while Jesus loves and there is benefit to a person becoming well, these were not the drivers of signs and wonders then nor are they now. This is all part of a larger story, i.e., the demonstration of the Kingdom of God - the already, not yet. As a Vineyard guy, i.e., a Radical Middle guy, I see this as counter to both the Charismatic and the "anti-Charismatic" positions. It is something altogether different.

Some quotes from Wright ...

For a first-century Jew, most if not all the works of healing, which form the bulk of Jesus' mighty works, could be seen as the restoration to membership in Israel of those who, through sickness or whatever, had been excluded as ritually unclean. The healings thus function in exact parallel with the welcome of sinners, and this, we may be quite sure, was what Jesus himself intended. He never performed mighty works simply to impress. He saw them as part of the inauguration of the sovereign and healing rule of Israel's covenant god...

The effect of these cures, therefore, was not merely to bring physical healing; not merely to give humans, within a far less individualistic society than our modern western one, a renewed sense of community membership; but to reconstitute those healed as members of the people of Israel's god. In other words, these healings, at the deepest level of understanding on the part of Jesus and his contemporaries, would be seen as part of his total minstry, specifically, part of that open welcome which went with the inauguration of the kingdom - and, consequently, part of his subversive work, which was likely to get him in trouble.

Jesus' "subversive work" continues through the Church today. We must continue through proclamation and demonstration of the Kingdom.

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