Healing, protection

[Chrysostom]

When you lift your son to the Father in the name of Jesus, you do well. He who condescended to be called Son of David makes you a child of God, and your child precious in His sight. Yet I would strengthen your faith, that you not merely say the words but grasp the power of Him you invoke. The same Lord who asked the blind men, “Believe ye that I am able to do this?” did not speak of entreating the Father but of His own might, because He is Very God, the only Physician who needs no amulet or incantation. Many, when a child ails, turn aside to pretended remedies, old women’s charms, trinkets, and whisperings that hide idolatry under the guise of piety. These avail nothing; they mock the Cross. The true Christian mother makes no such bargain. She signs her child with the Cross and says, “This is my only weapon, my only medicine.” Even if the sickness lingers, she would rather see her child suffer innocently than purchase a lie, and in that resolve she becomes a martyr, offering her son into the hands of the living God.

Do not then measure healing by outward signs alone. Carnal hearing expects the body to spring up at once and misses the far greater work, the cleansing of the soul, the peace that surpasses understanding, the spiritual mending that comes when we cling fast to Christ’s commandments. He who said, “The flesh profits nothing,” meant not His own life-giving flesh, but our habit of receiving His words as though He were a mere man or a provider of temporal comfort. Seek first the healing that renders the soul immortal; trust that bodily relief, if it be delayed, is not denied but held back for a richer blessing. For just as a tree often falls not at the first stroke but after many, so the fruit of patient prayer and listening to the word appears in time. Perhaps you have prayed often and seen no change, yet each supplication drives the root deeper. Despise not the slow work of grace.

The Lord who sat at table with publicans and sinners does not shrink from your son’s weakness. He wills to heal all that is broken, but He asks for a faith that looks beyond the seen. Continue to surround your son with the presence of God not by anxious repetition, but by offering him daily into the Father’s hands with a quiet mind. Let the Cross be your sign; let the commandments be your medicine; let the promises of Christ be your peace. And if the trial endures, bewail what must be bewailed, the remissness of those who refuse the Physician, yet with a mourning that itself becomes a healing, for such lamentation often amends where advice could not. Stand firm, and whether your son recovers speedily or learns to cling more tightly to the eternal hope, you shall both bear witness that the Son of God is faithful, and in His love you will find the protection no shadow can overcome.

 

[Silas]

Your prayer for your son rises from a heart that knows the depth of a parent’s love, and I join you in bringing him before the throne of grace. When we ask for physical, mental, and spiritual healing, we are reaching for something Scripture affirms are woven together. There is a beautiful wish in the letter where an aging apostle writes to a friend, “I pray that you may prosper and be in good health, even as your soul prospers.” That is not a blanket promise, but it reveals a truth we see both in the Word and in creation: the health of the soul is deeply connected to the peace of the mind and the body. As you pray for your son’s spirit to be renewed in Christ, you are also asking for a wellspring of life that can touch every other part of him. A heart made glad in the Lord truly does good like a medicine, as the Proverbs hint, and science is catching up to that reality. So do not grow weary in asking the Father to let your son’s soul prosper first, knowing that from that root, a steadier mind and a stronger body can follow.

Yet the ground of our hope is not an abstract connection; it rests on the Son. Think of how the Father spoke over Jesus at His baptism: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The very first love mentioned in the New Testament is the Father’s love for His only begotten Son. That same Father knows exactly the ache of watching a child suffer, because He gave that Son for our salvation. He did not withhold Him. When you cry out for your son, you are speaking to the God who understands a parent’s love more deeply than you ever could. He sent His Son to bear not only our sins but also our infirmities, Matthew, writing by the Spirit, took the prophecy of Isaiah and boldly applied the suffering of the Messiah to physical healing. At the table, when Jesus broke bread and said, “This is my body broken for you,” He was not only pointing to spiritual forgiveness but to a wholeness that reaches the body. So you can pray with confidence, not because healing is guaranteed on our timeline, but because the cross opened a fountain that cleanses the conscience and can mend the flesh.

I would encourage you to look often at the paralyzed man whose friends lowered him through a roof. They were desperate for his legs to work, but the first word Jesus spoke was, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” That might have felt like a disappointment, yet it was the deeper gift. The Lord was establishing that He, as the Son of Man, has authority on earth to forgive sins, and then, to demonstrate that authority, He said, “Take up your bed and walk.” For your son, I pray that same order would unfold: that he would know the forgiveness and peace of Christ in his innermost being, and that out of that settled soul, the healing of mind and body would flow, whether in an instant or through a gradual process. We are not told exactly why some receive an immediate touch and others walk a longer road, but every genuine healing, whether by the restoration of the body’s own God-given processes or by a sudden miracle, is the work of the Son of God. He who calmed the sea and cast out demons with a word is still Lord over every unseen danger and every attack on your son’s health. The evil spirits themselves recognized Him and trembled before the appointed time of their judgment. So as you ask for protection from harm both seen and unseen, you are standing on solid ground: Jesus has absolute authority in the spiritual realm, and no force can pluck your son from His hand.

As you continue to pray, hold tightly to the reality that Jesus is the Son of God. When He asked, “Whose son is the Messiah?” the answer was both Son of David and Son of God. The centurion at the cross, a hardened soldier, looked on the dying Jesus and declared, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” That confession is the dividing line of all faith. All judgment has been committed to the Son, and whoever honors the Son honors the Father. So do not let your heart drift into vague hope; plant your expectation firmly in the person of Christ, the only begotten, through whom we become adopted sons and daughters. Because you yourself are a child of God by faith, you can cry “Abba, Father” and know that the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is at work in your life and can bring life to your son’s body and mind.

I pray with you now: Heavenly Father, we lift up this precious son to you. Let the peace of Christ settle over his mind and drive out every torment of fear. Prosper his soul as he draws near to Jesus, and let that inward health spread to his emotions and his body. We ask for healing that may come swiftly or may unfold day by day, but in every case we trust your skilled hands and your perfect timing. Surround him with a wall of presence so that nothing unseen can touch him unless you permit it for his good. Remind him, and his family, that he is loved with an everlasting love, because he belongs to the Son who gave Himself for him. We ask this in the mighty name of Jesus, the Son of God, Amen.