When Jesus Failed at Healing

They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”

He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”

Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. - Mark 8:22-25

This might come as news to some of us, but Jesus sometimes failed at healing. The first go round in this passage, Jesus’s healing did not work. What do we do with that?

And then there’s the intervention with the demoniac where Jesus cast out the evil spirits… and they didn’t come out (see Mark 5:6-8 and notice that it says Jesus HAD said already for them to come out, and yet the conversation is continuing). What do we do with that?

Perhaps part of why these passages are in the scriptures is to keep us humble. They remind us that healing is not always simple and clear-cut. It’s often messy. It’s often a process. Shoot - just think of Lazarus, who was raised from the dead and who had to go through dying a second time! Isn’t that such a good reminder that our healing in this world is always partial and temporary.

Ultimately, healing points towards the way things are supposed to be. And that’s not the way things are now. So in the short run we do our best to stay on our journey, joining Jesus in the renewal of all things. That’s what Jesus was up to in the world then - even when it was messy and incomplete and took second touches and more casting-out. And that kind of healing is what Jesus is up to now. So let’s join Christ today in that process.

What that might look like is sitting in the tension that full healing hasn’t come for you yet. It may mean praying again. It may mean many different things - but it always is an invitation to join with Jesus and to do so with great love.