Jesus pokes His fingers in the ears of the deaf man. Then, Jesus spits on His finger and places it upon the man’s tongue to release his speech impediment. Jesus looks up to heaven and groans, Ephphatha, “be opened” (Mk 7:31-37). Jesus engages His whole body in transmitting healing from Himself to the man.

The people asked Jesus to place His hand on the man and he was healed. In a similar way, Jesus puts spittle on the eyes of a blind man twice until he recovers full sight (Mk 8:22-26). Jesus often heals through by touching the sick. Luke describes the healings of the many sick people who were brought to Jesus as the sun set by Peter’s house: “He, laying His hands on every one of them, healed them” (Lk 4:40).

Sometimes, Jesus heals by His words, as Mark describes the exorcisms: “For with power He commands the unclean spirits, and they obey Him” (Mk 1:27).

Jesus’ healings are worked by His divine power, for which His human nature is the instrument. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, “True miracles cannot be worked save by divine power because God alone can change the order of nature… The human nature is the instrument of the Divine action, and the human action receives power from the Divine nature” (3a. 43, 3).[1]

The human nature is a true component to the healing, as Thomas explains: “What the Divine power achieved in Christ was in proportion to the needs of the salvation of humanity, the achievement of which was the purpose of His taking flesh. Consequently, He so worked miracles by the Divine power as not to prejudice our belief in the reality of His flesh” (3a. 43, 3, ad 2). Jesus took our human nature to heal us.

This is the key to understanding the Incarnation. God didn’t just send us spiritual thoughts from a distance. The Son of God took our human nature and touched us in human ways, even to the Cross.

Thomas cautions not to disregard Jesus’ humanity. The fourth-century bishop Apollinarius was condemned by the early Church because he considered that Jesus’ humanity was an unnecessary attachment to the divinity similar to the work clothes that people put on to do a job. Thomas insists that mistakes about Jesus’ humanity are as serious as mistakes about his divinity.

Is Jesus’ humanity important for us? The two earliest heresies in the first centuries of the Church were the denial of His divinity, which required faith and thus a step beyond our senses, and the denial of His humanity, which was evident.

At the close of the first century, some who claimed to be Christians taught that Jesus wasn’t really human but only seemed to be human. He was a spiritual being. These are called the Docetists, from the Greek word dokein “to seem.” In 110, St. Ignatius of Antioch insisted that Jesus had a real body and was really born of Mary and really suffered and really died.

Jesus really entered into our humanity, as Paul affirmed “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found in human appearance” (Phil 2: 7).  Jesus saved us from the inside, with human words and touch and even spit.

Even today we might underestimate Jesus’ real humanity. The Sacred Heart of Jesus vividly reminds us of Jesus’ human heart.

Thomas explains that Jesus’ divinity and His humanity are at work in His miracles, “Christ came to save the world, not only by Divine power, but also through the mystery of His Incarnation. Consequently in healing the sick He frequently not only made use of His Divine power, healing by way of command, but also by applying something pertaining to His human nature” (3a. 44, 3, ad 2).

The miracles are done by Jesus Himself, as Thomas Aquinas recognizes: “He worked miracles as though of His own power, and not by praying, as others do” (3a. 43, 4). According to Luke: “Power went out from Him and healed all” (Lk 6:19).

Some Biblical scholars call attention to the fact that Jesus’ miracles are connected with His teaching. For instance, Raymond Brown has written: “The idea that such a figure [a miracle worker] was a commonplace in the 1st century is largely a fiction. Jesus is remembered as combining teaching with miracles intimately related to his teaching, and that combination may be unique.”[2]

Thomas Aquinas affirms that the miracles confirmed Jesus’ teaching: “First and principally, God enables man to work miracles, in confirmation of the doctrine that a man teaches” (3a. 43, 1). So closely are the miracles related to His teaching that Thomas asserts that Christ did not work miracles before He began His public ministry: “It was unbecoming for Him to work miracles before He began to teach” (3a. 43, 3).

According to Thomas, Jesus worked miracles to save us: “Christ came into the world and taught in order to save humanity: ‘For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world but that the world might be saved by Him. Therefore it was fitting that Christ, by miraculously healing men in particular should prove Himself to be the universal and spiritual Savior of all” (3a. 44, 3).

Does Christ still heal people? We often forget that Christ is our healer. Certainly, through the sacraments, Jesus heals our souls of the effects of sin and His grace heals us. Through the course of our lives, Jesus heals us of the effects of our actions and our weakness.

During the time of His ministry, Jesus sent disciples to minister: “He summoned the twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and He sent them to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal” (Lk 9:1). Jesus sent out seventy-two disciples, instructing them to “heal the sick and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you’” (Lk 10:9).

The Letter of James witnesses to the belief in healing among the early Christians: “Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven” (Jas 5:14-15).

Thomas affirms that God doesn’t do for us what we can do for ourselves. God provides medical help and medicine that can heal us. In some mysterious way, God works with the medical help and the person him or herself to restore health. Doctors are well aware that they are only assisting in a process which they don’t control.

St. Paul spoke of the Body of Christ. Jesus is the Head and we are His members. Jesus acts through the care and love of His members. Once I saw an elderly woman lying at the side of the road. When I helped her up, she said, “Thank you, Sacred Heart.” She was right. Jesus picked her up through a member of His Body.

After the healing of the deaf man, the people proclaimed: “He has done all things well: He has made both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak” (Mk. 7:37). Indeed, He has!

Denis Vincent Wiseman, O.P.

[1] References to the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas give the part of the Summa, the question and the article. If the passage is found in a response to an objection that Thomas has introduced in the first part of the article, the Latin word “ad,” meaning “to,” is added with the number of the objection. This particular reference is to the third part of the Summa, the forty-third question and the third article.

[2] Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), 63.