Followers

Matthew 12:15
“But Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. Many followed Him, and He healed them all.”

Jesus had been doing many great and wonderful things while He traveled with His disciples. He had been casting out demons, giving the blind sight, the deaf hearing, and even making the lame walk, but all of this wasn’t enough to keep away the harsh criticism of the Pharisees. They had to question whether it was lawful for Jesus to heal on the Sabbath. Because the Sabbath is the Lord’s day and is reserved as a day of rest and meditation, it was unlawful for a Jew to do any labor on that day. Jesus, however, being the fulfillment of the law and the cornerstone of God’s righteousness, bucked this man-filtered interpretation and did His Father’s work, even on the Sabbath. This enraged the Pharisees and they began to plot and devise a way to kill Jesus.

Jesus left the area, knowing their evil plans, and knowing that His time had not yet come. There were people, however, who had not yet received healing from Him. These people obviously had a desire to be close to Christ, to listen to His teachings, and to receive His healing, so they followed Him when He left. How fortunate for them, because He healed them all!

Often times in our study of the Bible, when we read what Jesus did and said, we get caught up in the parables He used or the accounts of specific healings. We read how He made a blind man see, or a raised a girl from death. We marvel at His wisdom and how He used simple stories to tell us about our lives, but we miss the secret. Here in this verse, hidden in the center of a completely different issue, is the secret. HE HEALED THEM ALL. The people who chose to follow Jesus all received healing. The Bible doesn’t give a great account of what ailments they had. I’m sure some were sick and others were lame. Some may have been blind or deaf while others may have had addictions, hurts and hang-ups. The fact is that the Bible doesn’t specify; it simply says that all who followed Him were healed.

What a great and marvelous, simple, hidden treasure this verse is. It’s not deep and theological. There aren’t 100 different interpretations to what it could mean. It’s pretty simple, “He healed them all.” That doesn’t leave much to be interpreted. As people who have chosen to follow Christ, I would think that we fit in this category. It’s not important what we need healing from, it’s important to know that all who followed were healed. The Bible doesn’t even mention if they asked for healing; it doesn’t mention if they even knew they needed healing. It just says that they were all healed.

Sometimes we get lost in our lives. We get locked down in this world and we may forget that we have problems. We may not even know that we have problems. But Jesus, the Great Physician, He knows. He knows what ails you; you know that all who followed Him were healed.