From the Mouth of God: Logos and Spittle

The miraculous healings performed by Jesus of Nazareth generally share a common form: Jesus draws near the afflicted, and like an almighty physician, He makes the person well. After taking her hand, Jesus instructs Jarius’ deceased daughter to rise; He calls to the dead Lazarus to come forth; He commands the paralytic to get up and walk home; after placing His hand upon Peter’s mother-in-law, she is healed. In other cases, it is as though Christ’s being itself is constantly shedding medicinal energy, such as when the hemorrhaging woman only touches the hem of his garment and is made whole. Indeed, it seems, as in the case of the feeding of the five thousand, that Jesus almost compulsively meets the needs which He encounters; He seems often incapable of resisting this compassionate impulse in the face of suffering, just as the woman’s mere contact with His robe compelled the virtue to proceed from Him. But in general, those whom He intends to mend stand or lie before Him, and under His gaze, commanded to suffer no longer, they are promptly healed.

There are, however, two healings which deviate from this routine, and in opposite directions: one exemplifying Christ at His most divine, the other entirely rooted in the earthy quality of His Incarnation. These miracles not only perfectly illustrate the opposing natures of divine and human in their extremities, but also clearly depict Jesus as far more than a simple magician who channels some supernatural power; rather, He is at once master of the cosmos and fully man.

Jesus’ divine nature is approached somewhat obliquely in the story of the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:7-9 DR). The soldier approaches beseeching Christ’s now-famous healing abilities on behalf of a beloved servant. Jesus responds, “I will come and heal him.” Jesus, prepared to go through the motions of another healing, makes ready to follow the Roman back to his home so that he might, in his usual way, tell the sick man to be well. Suddenly, however, things change when the suppliant pagan says, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof: but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.” The centurion is saying that he has not come seeking a medicine man or witch doctor; he has sought a man of supreme authority over all of space and time. The centurion explains: “For I also am a man subject to authority, having under me soldiers; and I say to this, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh, and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.” Who but God may only “say the word” to heal a dying man? Only One omniscient and omnipotent would be worthy of such an entreaty, and so by his request, the centurion reveals Jesus’ identity as true God. The soldier’s exceptional faith has assured him that Christ, from any time or any place, has dominion over all creation, and to will an ill man back to health is no object. So, while priests must deal in sacraments—channeling the power of Christ through the material elements of the ritual—God Himself, in His omnipresence, ministers directly, and reality conforms.

In marked contrast to this account from Matthew’s gospel, the healing of the blind man in John’s (9: 7-11 DR) is gritty and fleshy, as Jesus is depicted at his most “embodied”. In this vignette, Christ approaches the invalid by His own volition, and rather than opening His mouth to “only say the word”, he instead spits upon the ground and begins to play in the mud with his fingers. Instead of divine authority over the material world, there is saliva and sand. And with this paste, Jesus daubs the eyes of the blind man before telling him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloe.” And after scrubbing the Lord’s spittle from his eyes, the man saw for the first time in his life, proclaiming: “That man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes … and I see.” There is no mighty incantation reconfiguring reality; Jesus only cakes a man’s eyes with mud before asking him—very sensibly, considering he now has dirt smeared on his face—to go and wash; to go and clean up the mess Christ has made. This is a miracle of a very different sort. This is the Christ, thoroughly nestled in His corporeal nature. This is God at His most incarnate, fully embracing the wet and grimy quality of humanity, all the while showing that these two natures are never at odds within Himself. Here as well, Jesus, the human man and the First Priest, demonstrates a proper sacramental act, with both form (Christ’s words and intent to heal) and matter (in this case earth itself).

The mystery of the Incarnation is how one Person might have two natures—especially one divine and one human. And perhaps this perplexing duality is best approached when Jesus is found at His most quintessential: healing the sick. This recurring miracle, therefore, captures both essences at their most distinct, unifying them as the Person of Christ unifies God’s nature with man’s. The authenticity of each of the two natures is revealed in the contrast between God only saying the word and the Word becoming flesh and anointing the beggar with the dust in which He spat.