The Social Location of Healing

Healing as a Signpost of the Kingdom

When we talk about healing in the New Testament, it's tempting to focus on the miraculous. Jesus heals a lot of people. That part is obvious. But what often gets overlooked is how those moments serve as manifest signs—not just of divine power, but of the kind of kingdom Jesus is announcing. A kingdom where no one is left behind, where no one remains broken or on the outside.

Healing becomes a metaphor, a lived parable, for the restoration of all things. But it's not just about broken bones or individual ailments. That would only account for a sliver of the people Jesus encountered then—and even fewer who follow him today. So what are these stories really pointing to?

Healing Beyond the Physical

To take these stories seriously, we need to look beyond the immediate circumstances. Jesus doesn't just heal; he reveals. Each act of healing uncovers the social fractures and stigmas that divide us—and then undoes them. This is about more than physical well-being. It's about imagination. About how we see one another.

Jesus heals not simply to fix a problem, but to invite someone back into the story. A woman is healed because he doesn't want her left out of the party. A man possessed is met with compassion because his suffering has pushed him beyond the bounds of society. In each case, the real miracle is reconnection.

The Kingdom Starts with Reintegration

In Mark's Gospel, this thread is clear. The Kingdom of God begins not with escape, but with embrace. With the reintegration of communities fractured by illness, distress, and stigma. Healing, in this sense, is always socially located. It's not about personal escape from frailty; it's about communal transformation.

And that's so important to grasp. Because when we miss that, we risk building harmful theologies about our bodies. If someone uses a cane, is Jesus more interested in fixing their leg—or in healing a world that would make space for them to move freely, with dignity, just as they are?

Being Human Is Not a Barrier

Maybe that sounds like an odd question. Maybe you've never had to think about it. I know I haven't, not much. But the older I get, the more I realize: this body of mine is finite. Every day it ages. Every game of hockey I play reminds me I'm not as mobile as I was the year before.

Jesus never promised any of us an escape from that. So if the kingdom of God is near, if it's for all of us, then it can't just be about returning to what was. It must also be about imagining what could be—for all of us, together. A world where being human isn't a barrier.

The Power of Collective Faith

That brings us to the fourth healing vignette in Mark, where a group of friends tear open a roof to lower a man before Jesus. Jesus sees their faith—not just the man on the mat, but the community around him—and says, "Your sins are forgiven."

This is profound. First, because it shows the kingdom is a team sport. No one arrives alone. The Gospel knows nothing of personal salvation divorced from community. And second, because here, already in chapter 2, Jesus begins weaving together our bodies and spirits, our communities and relationships. Dependence becomes a virtue, not a vice.

Wholeness Begins with Belonging

In the first century, a man like this would have been economically isolated, socially excluded, and spiritually stigmatized. People would ask: what did he do to deserve this? Even Jesus' disciples make that mistake later on.

But Jesus shuts that down. He doesn’t start with blame; he starts with belonging. Being dependent on your friends is not a curse. It’s a gift. It's the kind of mutuality that leads to forgiveness, to wholeness, to healing.

And just to make the point concrete, Jesus says, "Get up. Take your mat. Go home."

Healing Is the Repair of the Whole

We're just getting started, Mark seems to say. Healing is not just the fixing of bones. It's the repair of all that pulls us apart. A woman joins the party. A demonized man is seen as neighbor again. A leper is welcomed back into community. And a man, stigmatized and sidelined, is reintegrated because his friends refused to leave him behind.

If that kind of healing—that social reintegration, that sacred mutuality—can take root in us, if we can believe that good news for ourselves and for those around us, then perhaps Jesus is right. Perhaps we really can do even greater things.

The integration, the welcome, the healing of all. That’s what the kingdom of God looks like.