Healing Scriptures - Mark 2:17

The physician

When you find yourself sick, what’s your first reaction?

Do you search for your symptoms online, make appointments, or try a natural remedy? Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals experience extensive training to diagnose, treat, and assist you.

However, there’s also a divine physician who can treat and heal any disease, no matter how incurable or unimaginable. Mark 2:17 is a healing Scripture that shows us God’s desire to touch our lives.

Just prior to this verse, Jesus asked Levi, a tax collector, to come and become His disciple. After Levi joined Jesus, they ate a meal together along with other tax collectors and sinners. These groups are specifically mentioned in this passage as they were of the same social status.

Tax collectors were viewed as having betrayed their fellow Jews by taking their income from them and working for the Roman government. However, Jesus chose not just to talk to these groups, but to sit and eat with them.

Jesus broke down all barriers to reach even the most outcast souls.

He’s the ultimate physician of your spirit and body. It’s not the healthy who need the immediate help of a doctor, but the sick. If you’re sick, make time in your schedule for an “appointment” with the God who cares deeply for you.

Repentance in the Bible

As we dig into this verse, we uncover interesting questions. Jesus said that He didn’t come to call the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance. But what does repentance look like and how does it relate to healing?

We all have received an apology that wasn’t backed up by actions or authenticity. Perhaps we have even witnessed the same behavior occurring repeatedly. These untruthful actions can sting and cause us not to trust our friends, family, and neighbors.

However, when God calls us to repentance and we approach Him for His saving grace, He’s faithful and just to forgive us and completely transform us into new beings.

The Hebrew word for repentance is teshuva, which means “to return.” When God calls us to repentance, He’s calling us to leave our ways and return to His ways. Jesus took all our sins on His own body so that we could live a life of freedom.

When we seek healing, we can run to God’s loving arms to find hope. Just as He is faithful to return us to a life of wholeness when we turn from our sins, He’s faithful to return us to healing when our bodies are sick.

In this verse, Jesus is saying that our own self-righteousness can never clean out our souls and restore our health. Yet with one touch, the divine physician can reach the innermost part of our lives and bodies. 

The idea of the divine physician was in full view when Emily Stieger was diagnosed with leukemia...then had to have an emergency C-section to safely deliver their child.

Jesus came for the sick

Jesus is willing to touch you when you struggle with pain, sickness, and disease. He didn’t come for those who believed that they could reach God’s perfect standards, but for those who recognized that they needed a Savior to rescue them from the stormy seas in this life. He is the ultimate doctor of our souls and bodies. When we know who we are in Christ, we can stand strong and walk through life with confidence.

The ultimate outpouring of love washed our souls clean when He died to save us from the most terrible sickness of sin. Your past, present, and future needs are seen by God. He’s with you in this moment as you cry out to Him. Rest knowing that He’s faithful to meet you where you are as you leave your sickness and return to His health and grace.