It occurred in a household of His disciples.  There, too, sorrow will come.  But there, if they tell Him of it, His help will not be far away.  This is one of the few miracles wrought on one of His more immediate followers.  The Resurrection of Lazarus, so like this in many respects, is the only other.

This scene of the healing Christ in His disciples’ household suggests the whole subject of the effect on domestic life of Christianity, or more truly of Christ Himself.  It is scarcely too much to say that the home, as many of us blessedly know, is the creation of Christ.  Cana of Galilee—­The household at Bethany.

II.  The time.

After His long day’s toil—­the unwearied mercy.  On the Sabbath—­the Lord of the Sabbath.

III.  The person.

The woman.  How Christianity embodies the true emancipation of women.  They are participants in an equal gift, honoured by admission to equal service.

IV.  The effect.

‘She ministered’; testimony of the completeness of the cure.  Which completeness is also real in the spiritual region.

How the basis of all our service must be His healing.  Ours second, not first.

How the end of His healing is our service.  We are bound to render it:  He desires it.  How each one’s character and circumstances determine his service.  How common duties may be sanctified.  He accepts our service whatever it be.

The Sabbath.  The services of love come before ritual observance, in Jesus and in the cured woman.

THE HEALING CHRIST

     ’Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.’—­MATT.
     viii. 17.

You will remember, probably, that in our Old Testament translation of these words they are made to refer to man’s mental and spiritual evils:  ‘He bare our griefs and carried our sorrows.’  Our evangelist takes them to refer, certainly not exclusively, but in part, to men’s corporeal evils—­’our infirmities’ (bodily weaknesses, that is) ’and our sicknesses.’  He was distinctly justified in so doing, both by the meaning of the original words, which are perfectly general and capable of either application, and by the true and deep view of the comprehensiveness of our Lord’s mission and purpose.  Christ is the antagonist of all the evils that affect man’s life, whether his corporeal or his spiritual; and no less true is it that, in His deep sympathy, ‘He bare our sicknesses’ than that, in the mystery of His atoning death, ‘He was wounded for our transgressions.’

It is, therefore, this point of view of Christ, as the Healer, which I desire to bring before you now.

I. First, I ask you to look at the plain facts as to our Lord’s ministry which are contained in these words:—­’Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.’