And He Healed Them All: Second Edition

by Jeffrey McClain Jones

  “‘My little boy is stuck down there! He’s hurt. Please, please help us!’ She wailed.

  “‘Peace, Mother. We will get him out without any harm. Tell me his name.’

  “‘He is Jacob.’ She clenched her hands together and covered her mouth.

  The teacher got down on his knees and braced himself against rocks on both sides of the small split in the mountain. He looked into the darkness for a moment. ‘Jacob.’

  “A faint voice echoed up.

  “The teacher pushed himself up from the crevice and looked around until he saw the rope they had been using for the rescue attempt. He pulled the rope free from the tangle of legs crowded around him and motioned for the people to move back a little.

  “One of the men who had been arguing when the teacher arrived stepped up to him. ‘You can’t just pull him out; his legs are caught among the rocks. When you pull, it hurts him, and he lets go of the rope.’

  “The teacher nodded. ‘I understand.’

  “He turned back to the hole and spoke to the boy once again. ‘Jacob, I’m going to raise you out of the hole. Just take hold of this rope I’m lowering to you. You don’t need to pull on it, just take hold of it with one hand.’

  “Those instructions seemed ridiculous. If the men couldn’t pull him out by their rope without hurting him, why bother to lower the rope again? How could he be raised by just one hand? Some of the men began to argue these points, but the mother of the boy stopped them. ‘Let the teacher do this. He has done many things today that you couldn’t do. Can’t he rescue my son as well?’

  “I wouldn’t have argued with that impenetrable logic, and neither did the men watching the teacher. But they continued to look on with furrowed brows and folded arms.

  “‘Now just take hold of the rope and don’t worry,’ the teacher said, after lowering one end.

  “He began pulling the rope up hand over hand. I expected to hear the boy cry out in pain, but there was none of that. In fact, the teacher seemed to be pulling up nothing but the rope, he raised it with so little effort. Instead of a cry of pain, we heard the boy complaining, the clarity of his voice growing: ‘My legs are stuck. How will you get me out just by holding on to this rope? The rocks are—’ He stopped suddenly when he saw the face of the teacher. He looked like he had forgotten what he had been saying.

  “The teacher gave Jacob his hand and helped him out of the lip of the crevice. The boy’s mouth hung wide open and he peered back into the hole as if he could find an explanation there. Finally, he found words. ‘How did you do that?

  “The teacher tipped his head slightly. ‘Does it really matter?’ He patted Jacob on the shoulder. ‘Are you hurt?’

  “Jacob looked down at his feet, which had been wedged into the rocks. They were bloody and dirty. The teacher knelt and touched the big toe of each foot. ‘You are healed.’

  “Jacob shook each foot, as if trying to get something off of them, or perhaps waking them up from falling asleep. His mother knelt and poured water on his feet. The dirt washed away as did the blood. And she could find no cuts, or even scratches.

  “The teacher moved away from the dangerous crevice, but not before leaving some instructions. ‘Block off that hole so no one else falls in.’

  “As he pushed into the crowd, the teacher seemed drawn to two young men who were supporting, or perhaps restraining, an older man whose head snapped from left to right, his hands flying to defend his face from invisible attackers. The two younger men attempted repeatedly to capture his hands, and even to keep him from running away. As the teacher approached, one of them said, ‘Father, this is he; this is the teacher. He can help you.’

  “At this the teacher stepped up to the old man and took hold of his head. Given his state before that, I would have expected this action to provoke more insane behavior. Instead, the old man grasped each arm of the teacher.

  “‘Oh, yes. I see now. I know now. Thank you. Thank you,” he said, as if the hands of the teacher spoke to him. No words had yet passed the lips of the healer, who simply held the shaggy white head.

  “‘Let it be restored to you, all that the locusts have eaten, all that the fires burned. Let it all be restored to you,’ the teacher said. And then just like that, he moved on.

  “The two sons waited for their father, with questions on their faces, as if the old man could explain what the teacher had done. Their father looked first at one and then the other. ‘My boys!’ he exclaimed, as if he had just returned from a long journey, if only a trip through the tangled land of his own addled mind.

  “The teacher approached a young man who had only one hand. Instead of another healthy arm and hand, a pointy sort of stump abbreviated his left arm. Only one bone of his forearm had grown to a natural length, it appeared. He held up the stump for the teacher to see, not hiding it from public view.

  “The teacher took hold of the elbow of that arm and held it up so that the pointed stump rose above the man’s head. The man was tall, so hundreds of people could see the malformed arm. For almost a half a minute the teacher held the arm in that position, and nothing appeared to happen. But then the arm suddenly seemed to sprout like a young plant. Out of that first sprout grew a bud and out of that bud branches. In a matter of seconds the healer created a complete hand out of an unfinished arm.

  “Just as hundreds could clearly see what was happening, so it was hundreds who exclaimed at the sight of the miraculous creation of a hand out of nothing. Those too far away joined in the noise with their questions: ‘What happened?’

  “The tall man wrapped his other arm around the teacher and hugged his shoulders while he pumped his new hand in the air. Tears flowed down his face as he sobbed and laughed.

  “The power of that healing rippled out to those who saw it.

  “I watched as several dozen people seemed to receive spontaneous healings at the very sight of the creation of the hand, and these were either celebrating with their friends and family, worshipping with loud shouts and singing, or falling to the ground out of apparent emotional overload. But those who still had their wits about them moved out of the way so that the teacher could reach others who still needed his touch.

  “As I had come to expect, that astonishing visible miracle ignited a sort of healing momentum that accelerated what had already been happening. The teacher seemed energized by its rolling force and began moving more briskly from one person to another. I got the impression that he was trying to seize the moment, that he saw healings about to happen, teetering on the verge, and he moved quickly to tip them over the edge.

  “Many reacted physically before he reached them. Others were transformed from sickly to robust health at the slightest touch. A middle-aged man yelled, grabbed at his chest, and then chattered that his pain had disappeared. A woman with a bandaged foot plopped down on the ground to unwind the bandage after the briefest touch from the teacher’s hand. A little boy ran in circles and leaped and shouted about his leg growing and his back pain disappearing, even though a knot in the crowd detained the teacher, who could only look at the boy. But a look was evidently enough to send his healing.

  “Though his progress through the gyrating crowd was slow and uneven, the teacher appeared quite pleased with the results. His friends, however, scowled in the midst of the bumping, the blocking, and the general noise and chaos.

  “The center of the crowd had devolved into something of a healing riot. And the teacher encouraged it, stirring it up by looking for people who needed healing and getting to them as soon as he and his bodyguards could manage. Peter and the others expertly navigated the crowd, uninhibited about pushing through to get where they wanted to go.”

  Walter stopped and took a long drink of water. Jillian had gone back to her work several minutes before.

  Walter chortled. “I have to admit that I still view these dreams in search of proof that they’re real, accurate in what they show about Jesus and his healing ministry.”

  Though his field was
sociology of religion, I knew Walter had lately dedicated himself to analyzing the New Testament healing stories, to check his dreams against those accounts of the ministry of Jesus and his followers.

  “So what have you concluded?”

  He cleared his throat. “A lot of what’s most compelling in these dreams is the personal reactions of these people that constituted a pretty anonymous crowd in the Gospel accounts.” He reached over and tapped his Bible. “We have individual healing stories, of course, like Lazarus being raised from the dead, for example. But where it says a whole multitude gathered and Jesus had compassion on them and healed them, or healed them all, we don’t get to see those individual stories.

  “For me, what happens to the people in the dreams feels consistent with those individual healings we read about in the Bible. And it’s also consistent with the remarkable assertion that he healed everyone in a large multitude. The variety of ailments would be vast. Moreover, no matter what they were, he healed them all.”

  I nodded. “I just assumed that you’d find consistency between your dreams and what’s written in the Bible. I know you too well to think that you were fabricating the dreams.”

  Walter’s eyes sparkled. “I’m glad you’re taking these dreams seriously, and that it’s making a difference for you.”

  I thought about the difference they were making, both healing Walter and reinvigorating his faith, not to mention providing a bridge to Jillian. But along with all of that, I recognized a sort of resistance whirling around inside me.

  “The revelation in your dreams isn’t a completely peaceful experience for me.” I struggled to put words to a feeling I’d been avoiding. “It feels like this fresh wind of grace is swirling against another wind going the opposite direction.”

  Walter turned his head slightly, a quick little motion of attention and concern. “What’s that about?”

  I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I guess this is shaking up my status quo. It’s like part of me wants to just ignore this picture of God invading the world and go back to living like I’m the one in charge of my life.”

  Walter nodded, recognition stilling his vigilance. “Well, at least it’s only part of you now?”

  I smiled. I guess that was progress.

  Chapter Ten

  Better Late than Never

  I arrived at Walter’s room much later than usual on Tuesday, barely catching the end of public visiting hours. Walter had finished dinner and was standing by his chair when I reached his door.

  “Jillian has come and gone already. You’re gonna have to move faster to keep up with that one.”

  “Long-winded faculty meeting today,” I said. I knew Walter understood that phenomenon.

  “Well, I’m all out of wind already myself, but you can listen to some of what I recorded about last night’s dream, if you like.”

  “Okay.” This was the first I’d heard of the new dream.

  Walter stepped toward the door. “I want a change of scenery. Let’s go to that little waiting area by Jillian’s office and watch for snow through those big windows. You can play back the recording. Who knows, I may want to add something the second time around.” He led me through the door and out into the hall.

  When we arrived at our destination, I arranged two of the cushy, brown fabric, chairs toward the tall picture windows. We both dropped to our seats wearily, me from a long day of work and Walter from a long life of living.

  Walter pressed play on the recorder.

  His familiar voice, sounding a bit less full and sonorous, began the narrative: “The vast crowd churning around the teacher offered opportunity to those most determined to reach him. Three men stood before the teacher. They wore long, dark-red cloaks, which were unusual given the weather. They might have intended these cloaks as a bit of a disguise over the Roman military clothing they wore, though I doubt that would work even for someone seeing them at a distance.

  “Here was the enemy.

  “Two of the men supported the one in the center, who appeared to be older and of higher rank, based on what I could see of the emblems on his armor. He favored his right leg and winced at every step. The teacher looked at him with the same concern and intensity as anyone who had come before. The wounded man didn’t look down his nose at this Jewish rabbi, but actually appeared a lot like a boy coming to his father for help. He must have seen healing offered freely to all kinds of people. Apparently he had no fear that the teacher would stop with him.

  “The officer tipped his head to the teacher.

  “‘What happened to your leg?’

  “The two soldiers with him suddenly seemed to find the ground fascinating, casting their eyes downward. But the officer answered plainly.

  “‘We were sent to stop a rebellion in the hills not far from here. The rebels took us by surprise as we rode toward what we understood to be their stronghold. I was hit by a spear; it penetrated my leg.”

  “The teacher would certainly have known that the rebels in this account must have been his countrymen, the wound inflicted by a Jewish patriot protecting his land from the foreign invaders. But he appeared to take no thought regarding the political implications. He motioned for the officer to show him the leg.

  “Infection had taken hold, so that the leg was nearly double the size of his other. The spear had cut straight through the thigh, halfway up. From the angle, it seemed that it must have at least nicked the bone on the way through. He couldn’t bend it at all because of the swelling. That the man was standing could only be attributed to pride and foolish machismo, which I assumed was as much a part of being a Roman officer as the armor.

  “After the teacher saw the condition of the leg, he actually seemed concerned, or perhaps troubled is the better word. He didn’t touch the leg, nor did he touch the officer. He seemed to be waiting for something.

  “A man from the crowd spoke up, a large man with a scar across his nose. He pushed his way past two people in front of him, scowling and pointing to the injured man. ‘It’s a Roman officer! Look at the way he’s dressed. It’s a Roman officer seeking healing from his wounds!’

  “But who was he accusing—the officer for the audacity to ask the Jewish rabbi to heal his battle wound, or the teacher for not turning him away?

  “The teacher peered at the accuser, who now stood close enough that he could know he was right about the identity of the wounded man.

  “‘Yes, it is as you say. But what is that to you?’

  “The accuser turned beet red. He clenched his fists and flexed his jaw muscles, as if warming up for his response. ‘He’s the enemy! He kills our people to make us slaves to his pagan emperor!’

  “The clarity and accuracy of this assessment couldn’t be denied. But the teacher added another consideration. ‘He is a sinner.’

  “The accuser stomped his feet and fairly trembled, his rage shaking him. ‘He is the worst kind of sinner, he is—’

  “Other voices added their own accusations.

  “The teacher cut them off. ‘Worse than whom?’

  “The accuser fell silent. Muffled replies from the crowd diminished and faded.

  “‘Worse than you?’ The teacher persisted.

  “Again the protester offered no response.

  “‘Who judges which sinners, and which sins, are the worst? How great must a sin be before it negates the power of God to heal? Should I heal only the sinless ones among you? Or should I heal only those with no blood on their hands? What about sexual impurity? Should I heal only the virgins with pure hearts and minds? What is it to you if my Father in heaven is generous to those who don’t deserve it?’

  “The teacher waited half a moment, then turned to the officer. ‘You may go. Your leg is healed.’

  “The officer bent over slightly and moaned; then he looked down at his leg and gingerly put his weight on it. He pushed the cloak back to inspect the injury. His leg looked normal in size and color.

  “‘Thank you, teacher.’ A
hint of emotion, verging on tears, leaked into his voice. After several bows, he and his soldiers turned and made their way through the crowd to where other soldiers stood with their horses.

  “The man who had accused the Roman remained silent. He now faced a dilemma. He stood holding the hand of a little girl he’d brought to be healed. How could he trust his little girl to this traitorous rabbi? Yet, where else could he go? I could see in this man’s quandry, another reminder of the remarkable variety of people drawn together in this crowd. More than by social class, nationality, or religious sect, their very understanding of the healing they received from the teacher divided them, as this man’s protest demonstrated.

  “The teacher solved the accusing man’s dilemma to some extent by simply reaching through two rows of people and gently touching the child on the head, at which point her severely crossed eyes instantly straightened. The change was so profound that the militant man dropped any other agenda and hugged his little girl, laughing slightly, while restraining tears, just like the Roman officer had after his healing.

  “As the teacher watched the man turn to retreat through the crowd, I noticed that there seemed to be an unusual concentration of children in this part of the hillside. I could sort out what looked like two large families and an additional group of children herded there by one woman.

  “The teacher turned to a child from one of the large families. A small boy, about five years old, watched the teacher from his perch in the arms of a woman I assumed to be his mother. The boy’s round face framed attentive eyes. The teacher took him from his mother’s arms and gently lowered him to the ground. That’s when I saw that his hips were severely misaligned, preventing him from standing normally. Otherwise he appeared quite healthy. He was a stout little boy, but the teacher’s strong arms maneuvered him comfortably. It appeared that the teacher healed the boy by gently touching those powerless legs to the ground. The moment his feet bore his full weight, his hips straightened, and a quiver ran through his legs, as if an infusion of strength accompanied the newly aligned hips.