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I think it’s tough to come up with answers to the questions of why Jesus chooses to heal people in the Gospel stories. With today’s example of his healing the son of a Roman official, some might say it was because the official recognised his authority. Others might say it was he turned to him in his moment of desperation. Others still might say it was because when challenged by Jesus as to his need to see signs and wonders before believing, the official is unequivocal in his expectation that Jesus is able to heal his son, that it will happen. My thought is this: unless we were there, or better still, inside the mind of Jesus, we will never truly know, we can only speculate.
There is an underlying truth here which is crucially important, however. Not only is Jesus willing and able to heal, he is, I think, waiting for the opportunity to be generous. We’re told that God is abounding in steadfast love. To be abundant, to abound implies that there is a lot of steadfast love, compassion, faithfulness to go around. I wonder how often I limit my own sense of what God is willing to do as I bring a person or circumstance to him in prayer. God is bigger and more willing and able than I will ever be, or will be able to ask or imagine him to be. I wonder, where does that fit in to the outworking of my faith? What about yours?
Sometimes, the ‘why’ question can be deeply unhelpful. Sometimes we just have to allow ourselves to believe that God is bigger than us, our minds and our expectations, that his politics don’t line up with ours, he doesn’t read the Telegraph or the Guardian, he’s bigger than all of that. He’s in the business of healing, reconciling, of making things new. Are we?