Details are important. When you look at scripture, the answer to your question or your confusion might just be in one of the details that we so easily skip over.

But under ordinary circumstances, details can be boring. And not every little detail proves to be important to your study.

So here’s the plan. We’ll look at details very carefully when we want to and if there seems to be a good reason.

I like that. And it just happens that we can do some of that detail work in this lesson in Matthew chapters eight and nine.

There are a number of stories of healing in these chapters, along with some other events. So we can ask how these healings differ from each other, or how they are alike. There must be a reason to include all the stories, or else one healing would be enough.

We’ll start with chapter eight, where Jesus heals a man with leprosy in verses one through four. The disease is leprosy, an ugly and deadly disease that shows itself on the skin. It was very visible. Everyone would know if someone had leprosy.

And people stayed away. A leper was not welcome in any group of people. They were untouched and disconnected from society.

So what does Jesus do? He touches the person with leprosy. And the disease is gone. Notice the man’s question.

“Jesus, I know you can heal me. But do you want to? Are you willing?”

And Jesus reached out and touched the man.

Notice the order of things. Jesus touches him, then he tells him that is willing to heal him, then he speaks the words, be clean. And at that moment, the man was healed.

The Bible says it was immediate. Right now. The man was healed. But what healed him? Please excuse the stupid question. That’s another tip for Bible students—you have the right to ask all sorts of stupid questions.

But think about this: if Jesus healed the man with a word, why did he touch the man? Why did he touch the untouchable man?

Remember the man’s question—do you really want to heal me? This moment is all about the mercy of God, or the love of God, or the fact that Jesus cares so very much about every ache that we feel.

He healed the obvious problem, the leprosy. And he began to heal other problems that the man must have felt, like the loneliness, the disconnectedness. So here is a lesson. Jesus wants to heal, can heal with a word or a touch, and even heals the problems that we don’t ask about.

That’s one person healed.

Then Jesus meets a Roman soldier who has a servant that needs medical attention. The servant is paralyzed and in pain, and the Roman officer comes to ask Jesus for help.

We asked before if Jesus healed by touch or by word. We don’t know, and after this story, we won’t care.

Jesus told the man that he would come to the house and heal the servant. And the Roman officer stopped him, politely. The officer understood two things. One: he didn’t deserve to have Jesus come to his home. And two: it wasn’t necessary.

The man lived in a world full of well-marked lines of authority. As an officer in the army, he gave orders and they were carried out. So he told Jesus to just say the word, just give the order, and the servant would be healed.

And he was right.

So now, we know that Jesus can heal when he is close enough to touch the patient, and he can heal when he is far away. Just a word will do, and the effect is immediate.

It would be a fair guess to say that Matthew is making a point about the authority of Jesus, among other things. Keep that in mind as we go.

When the disciples came to Peter’s house, Peter’s mother-in-law lay in bed with a fever. Jesus touched her, and she was better. Immediately. I don’t know if she even asked to be healed. We don’t ever see what kind of fever it was.

But there it is. At his touch, the fever must go away.

In the evening, the people brought another challenge. Among the sick were a new kind of patient, those afflicted by demons. Illness is one thing. But this is quite another thing.

But they are the same to Jesus. With a word, he drove out the demons and healed the sick. In these few accounts, Matthew is building a larger picture of Jesus. He cares. He wants to heal. He touches. He drives away sickness. He even casts out demons by his word.

Healing is immediate and total. And it speaks of something greater yet to come. Matthew pulls out the Old Testament reference here, speaking from Isaiah 53. The Messiah would come to take our diseases and sicknesses upon himself.

So Matthew declares in a loud voice that the Messiah has come.

The next few paragraphs, in verses eighteen through twenty-two, talk about the cost of following the Messiah. For the sake of time, we’ll skip over these. But you can read them and ask how they fit in among these stories of healing.

We’ll also skip past verse twenty-seven, although the word that stills the waves and calms the storm is remarkably like the word that heals the sick. Still, on we go.  

The last few verses of chapter eight tell the story of two men who are tormented by demons so violent that the men are a danger to anyone who comes near. The demons speak to Jesus. The two men are so controlled by the demons that they are not even invited to the conversation.

The demons beg to be sent into a herd of pigs rather than face the judgment that awaits them. Jesus orders them to go, and the demons rush into the herd of pigs, who run headlong into the water and are all killed.

We can see Jesus’ power here like no other healing in this passage. He is absolute master of the spirits that plague people. At his slightest suggestion, they must go, even if it means their destruction.

The people in the area recognized that power. But notice their reaction. They do not celebrate, nor do they worship. They were afraid, and they pleaded with Jesus to leave the region.

Funny. The demons probably wanted the same thing.

In the first few verses of chapter nine, Jesus heals a man who is paralyzed. Friends bring the man, and when Jesus sees their faith, he heals the man of his inability to walk. Sometimes the faith of the sick person enables the healing. Sometimes it is the faith of the friends.

But Jesus does not simply heal the man. First he tells the man that his sins are forgiven. This brings on the muttered accusations of blasphemy. The people in the crowd all understand that Jesus is claiming to be God, or at least to speak for God.

When Jesus heals the man, he proves that he has the right to forgive sins. Perhaps this is the real reason for these miracles, as a sign of a deeper need and a greater power, the power to heal a spiritual sickness.

Two more examples of healing remain. To get to them, we will skip over the calling of Matthew and some questions about fasting.

There are two stories in verses eighteen through twenty-six of chapter nine. Jesus is asked to heal a daughter who has died. The girl’s father asks Jesus to come and place a hand on the girl, and she will live.

But as Jesus walks toward the man’s house with his disciples around him, a woman comes up behind them and touches the edge of Jesus’ cloak.

Details may be important here. She touches the cloak, thinking that she will be healed. But Jesus notices and tells the woman that her faith has healed her. And at that moment, she is healed.

Was it the touch of the cloak? Was it the word of Jesus?

What healed her?

Obviously, it was the power of God. And her faith played a huge role in her miracle. Jesus makes that clear.

One other thing is clear. If she has been healed just by the touch of the cloak, Jesus does not let it end there. He speaks to the woman. He tells her that the healing is not stolen from him. It is given.

Of all the truths that are demonstrated by this great power of Jesus, the greatest is that God has come to stand right next to us and bear our sufferings. The greatest call is to come and be with Jesus.

So if the woman came and got a clean bill of health but never saw the savior face to face, never heard his voice, never saw for herself that he loved her, then it would have been a hollow victory. She might have missed the greater healing that awaited her, that of eternal life.

Going on, Jesus comes to the house and tells the crowd that the girl is only asleep. They laugh, because they know death when they see it. But he enters the house, takes the girl by the hand, and raises her up from death.

Do you see a progression here? First was leprosy, the ugly skin disease. Then paralysis, then a fever, then demons and a host of diseases. Now death. The list grows ever more serious, and in every case, there is no problem that the word of Jesus cannot solve. There is no sickness that cannot be cured.

It is all a proof of his authority, but it is also proof of the reality of our lives. Death is the final problem that we face. Jesus did not come merely to conquer fever or leprosy. He came to heal death, and he will do that once and for all.

Go on to read the last few accounts of healing in this chapter, verses twenty-seven through thirty-four. What happens differently for these people? What are they sick with? How does Jesus heal them? What does he ask of them?

The answers are right there, waiting for you. Just look for yourself, and trust what you see. Pay attention to what scripture gives you in those few verses.

Pay attention to the details.