1 - After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him.
2 - and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out;
3 - Joanna the wife of Cuza, the mangager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
In her recent book, "Hurt People Hurt People", (Discovery House Publishers, 2001) Dr. Sandra D. Wilson talks about "hope and healing for you and your relationships."
If others have ever seriously hurt you this book comes heartily recommended. It would be especially beneficial for every parent to read, because parents who are unprepared for parenting can cause much hurt in the lives of their children. (It is a sad commentary on American life that most parents receive more instruction on learning to drive a car than they do learning how to parent.)
In her book Dr. Wilson even shares her own story of hurt growing up in a horribly dysfunctional family setting.
"When my mother married my father she did not know that he was a bigamist and an embezler, but he was. When he learned that my mother was pregnant with me, he tried repeatedly to prevent my birth by insisting that my mother abort me. When she refused, he tried to induce a miscarriage. When that failed, he tried several times to kill her (and me) in what would look like a gun-cleaning accident. Before he could succeed, God intervened, and federal authorities caught up with him and put him in prison."
"Consequently, I’ve never met, seen, spoken to, viewed a photo of, or seen even a scrap of handwriting from my biological father."
"Decades before single motherhood became fashionable, my mother had a fatherless infant to care for in a place thousands of miles from family and friends."
"At the hospital where I was born and where she worked as a physical therapist, rumors spread about my illegitimacy. Shortly before my mother’s death in 1990, I got a deeper understanding of her shame and humiliation when she told me about putting her marriage license on the main hospital bulletin board to silence the rumors."
"Two years later she married the alcoholic stepfather I believed was my birth father until Mother told me differently when I was ten. She divorced him three years later when his alcohol-related violence escalated to life-threatening levels."
"I’m still missing chunks of my chaotic childhood. For nearly three decades, I erased the horror and humiliation of sexual molestation at the hands of a stranger, family "friends", and, the worst, a step-uncle."
"How could those and many other awful experiences occur when I had an intelligent, well-educated, hard-working mom who loved me very much and loved God even more?"
"Perhaps part of the answer is that my mother herself was deeply wounded by shame. Her unseen wounds showed up most clearly in an inability to have a healthy, mutually respectful romantic relationship, resulting in five marriages to four husbands."
It is cause to rejoice that the person who experienced this pain is now involved full time in ministering to heal the hurts of others! Only by the grace of God and His truth is she whole and functioning today.
Hurt people hurt people.
When others hurt you it is sometimes because they have hidden hurts themselves that need to be healed.
All of us need to take inventory of how we have dealt with our hurts so we do not hurt others. We need the healing that Christ and His grace and truth offers. (John 1:14-17)
When Christ heals us another truth also becomes evident.
Just as it is true that hurt people hurt people, it is also true that healed people heal people!
This is one of the many exciting ventures of the Christian experience. If we have been hurt, Christ can heal us. Once we are healed, we can help Christ heal others!
The women in today’s scripture were healed women. Jesus cast demons out of them and healed them of other problems that aren’t named. Diseases that doctors could not heal no doubt, and problems man alone could not solve.
Once they were healed by Jesus they began to play a vital role in the healing process of others. They traveled with Jesus and the Twelve on the city-to-city tour of spreading the Good News.
One can hardly imagine that they did not share their personal testimony, if not publicly, then at least privately. News of their healing had probably preceded them - and their mere presence was a silent witness to the power and compassion of the Healer Himself.
Let’s look specifically at just one of these women - Mary Magdalene, and see how her healing example teaches us to become healers.
1. Healed people share a devotion to the Master that makes them healers.
No one superceded Mary in her devotion to her Master. Her name is mentioned 14 times in the New Testament - more than any other woman except Mary, the mother of Jesus. She is mentioned in all four of the gospels and in the book of Acts. Eight times her name is listed with the names of other women, and, except for the scene at the foot of the cross, her name always leads the list.
She was there at the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and she has the unique distinction of not only being the first to see Christ after His resurrection, but also the first human to spread the Good News!
This is because her devotion to the Master continued even after He was falsely accused, brutally beaten and shed His blood for the sins of the world.
She not only saw the sight of Jesus’ death but she heard the sounds - the mocking and daunting of the crowd; the hammer pounding the spikes through the Savior’s flesh; the thud of the wooden posts as they were dropped in the ground; the screams of the crucified as their flesh tore when the weight of their bodies hung on the nails.
She heard the cries for mercy from the thief on one side of Christ. She heard Jesus promise Paradise to this man who believed in Him in his dying hour. Surely she marvelled when she not only saw the forgiveness of the Savior, even in this hour, but also the unbelief of the impenitent thief who, even as he was dying, joined the many mockers on the ground below in rejecting the Messiah.
She heard her Savior say, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." She heard Him simply say, "I thirst". She heard Him ask the Apostle John to care for His mother Mary. What marvelous love, that, even in His horrible suffering, He wanted to know that his mother’s needs would be met. What a Savior! Mary knew all along that He was a compassionate, caring, marvelous, wonderful friend.
Luke tells us here that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her. That is amazing! We can only imagine the horror of a human mind and body being tormented by the presence of seven foul spirits bent on pleasing their master, the devil himself.
Seven is the biblical number of completeness. Mary was no doubt completely controlled by Satan.
We don’t talk much about demon possession in the 21st Century. Perhaps we’re too enlightened to think that Satan still controls people’s lives.
Do we not see people all around us under the influence of illegal drugs, alcohol, illicit sex, sexual perversion, materialism, greed, selfishness, lust for power, etc.?
Jesus said, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin." (John 8:34) And He went on to say, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:36)
Mary had been set free! She knew what slavery to sin was like and she now knew what being set free was like! More than anything she loved the One who alone was willing and able to set her free!
No more torment of her soul by the intemperate demons of hell. No more anguish and fear. But now peace, joy and love filled her heart and mind. How could she not be devoted to the One who made all this possible? How can we not be devoted to Him?
2. Healed people don’t have an image to protect.
Pride is an awful hindrance to worshipping and serving God and serving others. Mary Magdalene forfeited her pride.
Everyone knew her past. It was a matter of public record. Most of us have a sin record that is secret. Not Mary. Everyone knew that seven demons used to occupy her. It made all the papers when Christ healed her. Consequently she didn’t have to try and hide anything. She could worship and serve her Master with total abandon. She had no skeletons left in the closet. All her dirty laundry had been publicly aired out.
She had already been exposed. So what? Why is this important?
a. Protecting our image is often the cause of conflict.
At one point the Twelve had a dispute among themselves about who should be the greatest amongst them. Jesus said that if any man desired to be the first in heaven he needed to be the last, or the servant of all here on earth. (Mark 9:34,35)
That disputing is still going on today. Where does it come from?
"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?" (James 4:1)
Our flesh wants recognition. But seeking recognition gets in the way of seeking the Father’s will.
The individual who is not trying to protect his or her image isn’t about to get in a quarrel about who’s the greatest. They don’t really care.
b. Protecting our image leads to a wrong motive for worship and service.
Jesus taught us in prayer to find a prayer closet so we could pray in secret. He was letting His disciples know that the pattern of the religious hypocrites of praying on the street corners "to be seen of men" was not the proper motive. He wasn’t ridiculing public prayer - He was correcting improper motives. You might as well be praying to men as to pray the way some people do. We’re not supposed to pray to impress others but to communicate with God.
The same is true of our giving. Jesus said something peculiar here; "Don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing". He wasn’t speaking literally. He was using hyperbole. It’s not humanly possible to keep your left hand from knowing what your right hand does.
Jesus was teaching us to do our giving, just like our praying, as an act of devotion to God, not a ceremony in which to impress man.
When we worry too much about our "image" we can’t heal people. We only get in the way.
3. Healed people minister with their means.
Mary’s devotion and lack of image protecting caused her to want to be a part of Christ’s team, but there’s one more thing the Bible says here we can’t ignore.
Mary and the other women who were a part of Christ’s traveling evangelistic team used their means to be involved in the healing process. They trusted Christ with their livelihoods and invested in the great work of helping people get well.
It was unheard of in Christ’s day for a rabbi to allow women to be involved in ministry. But this was Christ’s plan. He was revolutionary and radical! He gives us the opportunity to share in His work!
Just imagine someone from your favorite sports team calling you up and inviting to you to come be a part of the team. Or imagine the leading company in your field inviting you to leave your position in a lesser firm and join the top team.
How exciting that would be.
Christ offers us something far better. He invites us to come with Him and heal people!
But here’s the twist. When we join Christ’s team we must be willing to invest from our own resources to heal people.
Healed people heal people. But many healed people sefishly receive their healing and walk away without offering anything to re-invest in the process.
They miss out on the joy of seeing others healed.
The joy of holding on to our means cannot compare to the joy of seeing someone receive Christ’s help!
YOU decide whether or not you want to join the healing team.
Mary Magdalene and her ministering friends decided they wanted to help Jesus heal people.
That’s what healed people are supposed to do.
Healed people heal people.
