Hope trumps disease by Deon Crafford

Mark 2:17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

When recently the Rev Tim Keller, founder of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, passed away, after a three year battle with pancreatic cancer, it took me some time to process. I imagined so many people interceding for him in prayer and yet this dreadful disease finally ended his earthly life. This man  obsessed with preaching the Gospel, was not healed by God. Should those  around him be lost in hope? No, because like all of us, the blood of Christ healed us from the most fatal and dreadful disease of sin. Tim’s path had long been laid by God and the faith of those that prayed for him would ironically have been strengthened by their experience in calling on God. Physical disease does not limit God, as it did not limit Jesus in His earthly ministry. But it does bring us into deep, intimate and dependent moments with our Saviour. As we read about Jesus healing people or raising them from the dead, we will be struck not so much by what is written about who is healed, but by what is written about those in relationship with the healed person. Disease fires our determination, faith, hope and closeness with God, and even though we cannot effect guaranteed physical healing to every person or ourselves, we can facilitate strength and refuge in God’s abundant love and destiny for us. We shall keep praying and interceding, because God always has His face turned towards us. While the healing of the sick is not a machine learning application, we all have so many experiences of God’s amazing grace in seeing how our hope in healing was answered – sometimes even medically inexplicable – here on earth, and yet we know that ultimate healing is secured for us all. Our hope is never in vain.

Love to all

DC