Some years ago I participated in a retreat for Christian medical students in Kursk, Russia, arranged by a church pastor I had met in Crimea. The theme of the retreat was a Russian expression: “Doctors treat disease, but God gives the cure.” Over the years though I have observed that God rarely gives the cure unless doctors treat the disease. Funny how that works. Of course there are many conditions that can and do resolve spontaneously, and some patients can experience an unexpected cure from serious disease. Usually God gets the credit even though natural processes may have caused the cure. God often gets the credit even when modern medicine is used, as reflected in that Russian expression. But to be fair it could be that we doctors sometimes get credit we don’t deserve. For example, it has been very common for doctors to prescribe antibiotics for children’s ear infections, but now we know that most such infections will clear without antibiotics. It’s mostly time and the child’s immune system, but the doctor gets the credit (and the payment) for the cure. Now let’s turn to “The Great Physician,” as he has been called.
The Gospels portray Jesus as performing amazing miracles. Some of them have to do with nature, such as calming a storm or turning water into wine. Most have to do with healing a variety of afflictions, including leprosy and possibly other infectious diseases, blindness, being mute and deaf, paralysis (or some form of crippling disease), one case of a bleeding disorder (maybe dysfunctional uterine bleeding?) and most remarkably, raising three people from the dead.[1] He was also said to exorcise demons which apparently caused seizures and mental disorders, so I would also classify those as healing miracles.
The faithful believe Jesus performed such miracles; after all, he was the Spirit-empowered divine Son of God. Skeptics believe such miracles are purely legendary. But even if so, there likely was some basis for portraying Jesus as a great healer. The Gospels tell us that Jesus believed in the power of prayer, as in Matthew 21:22, “And whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive it all.” And that he was a compassionate person, caring about the downtrodden and afflicted. as in Matthew 9:36, ‘Seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd.’ So, it seems quite reasonable that Jesus would have prayed for those in need of healing. But, did he succeed in healing them? All of them? Some of them? How many would Jesus have to heal in order to secure a reputation as a great healer?
Let’s examine Jesus’ first recorded miracle.[2] In Mark 1:23-28 we read of a man with “an unclean spirit.” When Jesus rebukes the spirit, “after throwing him into convulsions and crying out with a loud voice, the unclean spirit came out of him.” This is not the only story connecting convulsions with demon possession. Later in the same Gospel is a more complete description: “…whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes stiff” (see Mark 9:14-29). A classic description of a grand mal seizure, again supposedly caused by demon possession. It is understandable that people of that time would attribute seizures to demon possession: a person seems perfectly normal one moment, and the next he loses control of his faculties and writhes on the ground as if possessed. Lacking a medical explanation, people resorted to a superstitious one.
So, could Jesus heal epilepsy? I would suggest that he did not have to. Seizures tend to be episodic; intervals between seizures can be anywhere from minutes to months. Although seizures can be protracted most are relatively brief, less than two minutes. If you pray for someone having a seizure the odds are that the seizure will end soon. There may be a “post-ictal” period of lethargy but otherwise the person is back to normal. The demon is gone! He has been healed! Thank you, Jesus! If you had a son afflicted in this way and a dynamic religious figure like Jesus prayed for him and the seizure ended, wouldn’t you want to believe that your son was healed (or cleansed)? Jesus had a traveling ministry; by the time the next seizure occurred Jesus could have been many miles away. The family might be aware of the relapse, but the disciples traveling with Jesus, who became the tellers of his story, would go away thinking they had witnessed a miracle. (I suspect they did become aware of some relapses, and Jesus addressed that; I’ll discuss that in Part 3 of this series.)
I have my own “miracle” story concerning epilepsy. I had an acquaintance with a rather persistent form of epilepsy and despite multiple medications he would still have seizures on occasion. Typically he would presage a seizure by getting a glazed look in his eyes and stroking his nose. One day we were at a mutual friend’s house and he got that glazed look in his eyes and started to stroke his nose. So I spoke directly to him, calling him by name and getting his attention. (Interestingly, in ancient times it was believed that if you knew the demon’s name you could control him!) No seizure occurred. Our mutual friend was amazed, “You talked him out a seizure!” It was nothing supernatural. A seizure is an electrochemical storm in the brain that disrupts its normal function. If you can interrupt that cascade of events then the seizure is averted. I got his attention and short-circuited the seizure. Or possibly it just wasn’t going to develop into a full-blown seizure anyway, and I got lucky! (Rather, he got lucky.) That’s all that happened on that day. There was no miracle. But it impressed our friend. As I’m sure Jesus’ disciples were impressed.
Another possibility could be pseudoseizures, which are consciously or unconsciously caused by emotional, social or even financial influences. I have seen several cases in my career. If you perform an EEG[3] on such a patient it will not show the chaotic brain activity typical of true seizures. When confronted by an impressive figure like Jesus such a person might forego their seizures and seem to be healed, at least until Jesus moved on and life returned to normal.
It seems that psychiatric disorders were also attributed to demon possession. Later in Mark 5 we meet a man said to be possessed by many demons, such that they called themselves “Legion.” This description sounds like someone severely disturbed: “Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and cutting himself with stones.” Jesus calmly talks to the man, casts the demons out of the man and into a nearby herd of pigs[4], and the man returns to his right mind. Like seizures, psychosis and other mental aberrations can be episodic. Perhaps Jesus was the first person bold enough to engage the man in conversation, rather than confronting him in fear, and this calmed him down. Again, this would have been very impressive to his disciples. It is interesting to note that Jesus does not let the man accompany them, but sends him back home, so his disciples would never know if the healing was permanent or this was just a temporary lull in his condition.
In the next post we will examine Jesus’ miracles associated with those paralyzed or crippled.
Thinking exercises:
1. It is possible, or rather probable that some of the illnesses Jesus encountered were of a psychiatric origin, given the prevalence of psychiatric issues. Do you see anything in Jesus’ manner or methods that would be useful in such situations?
2. Even today many people believe in the healing power of prayer even though they know that many people that pray or are prayed for do not get healed. Might the same principle have applied to Jesus and his reputation as a healer? Would the occasional apparent success secure his reputation as a divine healer?
[1] In one case Jesus raised an unnamed man in Nain according to Luke 7, and in another He raised up Lazarus in John 11. In each case the miracle is not confirmed by the other Gospels, which is most remarkable in the case of Lazarus since it happened near Jerusalem and that Gospel (alone) says it is the very event that led to Jesus’ eventual arrest and crucifixion! The other was raising Jairus’ daughter, recorded in Mark 5, Matthew 9, and Luke 8. In that case Jesus himself says the girl was not dead but only sleeping. Did Jesus recognize that the girl was only pretending to be dead, again, perhaps some psychiatric or emotional issue, or unusual family dynamic going on there? Maybe Jesus had a gift for recognizing such things and missed his calling as a psychiatrist!
[2] Most scholars recognize Mark as the earliest Gospel. Paul wrote earlier, but never mentioned any of Jesus’ miracles.
[3] Electro-encephalogram, which records electrical activity of the brain.
[4] The pigs then rush into the lake and are drowned. Is it possible that Legion scared the pigs into a stampede, but the villagers attributed it to the demons? Or could this be nothing more than a later embellishment?