How the Savior Healed Families

Continuing the theme of family from yesterday, I have thought about how the ministry of the Savior focused on healing families.  At first in considering the healings He performed, it appears that they were all individual healings; He didn’t take whole families at a time and heal them of their sicknesses all at once.  But He certainly did bless families and healed individuals within families as He responded to the love of one family member for another.  Perhaps the best-known family that He blessed and cared for is that of Mary, Marta, and Lazarus.  Mary and Martha were sisters devout followers of the Savior.  He helped to heal a potential rift between them when He was at their house and Martha was troubled about the fact that Mary wasn’t helping her, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42).  He was interested even in helping the two sisters in their relationship.  The Savior of course also healed their family in a more dramatic way when the sisters came to Him begging for the life of their brother Lazarus.  They wept saying, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.”  He declared, “I am the resurrection, and the life” and He raised up Lazarus from the dead (John 11:21, 25).  This, perhaps the greatest of all the miracles besides His own resurrection, was done to bless a family that grieved for a loved one.  To me one of the messages from this story is that He does indeed want to bless and heal families today, just as He did for this family in the meridian of time.  Even in the most difficult of family problems, the healing of Lazarus shows that with faith He can help bring healing to our families.

            Many other miracles He performed were to bless families, or at least they were done at the pleading of one family member for another.  He raised the son of the widow of Nain to reunite a mother and child.  He healed the daughter of the Canaanite woman by casting out a devil at the fervent request of this mother.  When Jairus came to Him pleading for his only daughter who was dying, Jesus came and raised her from the dead.  He blessed the lives of both “the father and the other of the maiden” who were grieving for their child (Luke 8:51).  Jesus similarly healed the son of the nobleman who “besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death” (John 4:47).  The Savior also healed the mother-in-law of Peter at Capernaum when she lay “sick of a fever” (Matthew 8:14).  On another occasion “there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water” (Matthew 17:15).  The Lord again complied and blessed this father by healing his son.  All of these healings took place to bless a family because a mother or father or sister or even son-in-law sought for the blessings of Jesus to heal their beloved family member.  These stories all testify to importance of families and the willingness of the Savior to bless and heal families when faith is shown.