There are several instances in the Gospels in which Jesus initiates the healing of a person without any attestation to having been first entreated to do so. Perhaps the most remarkable instance is that of the raising from the dead of a widow's only son, which can be regarded as an extreme healing since healing ultimately points to the resurrection anyway. Below is listed in order of appearance the instances which I have identified as evidence for the claim made above.
However, it should be noted that the absence of attestation to Jesus' having been entreated to heal someone does not in every instance preclude the possibility that someone had actually done so. This is illustrated in the accounts given of Jesus' healing of Peter's mother-in-law. Matthew 8:14-17 seems to indicate that Jesus initiated the healing without any outside entreaty to do so. However, Mark 1:29-31 relates that the disciples mentioned her to Jesus with the implication that they expected him to heal her. Luke 4:38 goes further in reporting, "They asked Jesus to help her."
Nevertheless, based on the contextual readings of the instances listed below, I am persuaded that most if not all of these are indeed indicative of divinely initiated healings; i.e., Jesus took the initiative to do good to these people without any direct verbal request to do so. Herewith follows the list.
Matthew 12:9-13. Although the Pharisees are reported as calling attention to a man with a crippled hand, there is no record that they or the man asked Jesus to heal him. Rather, the Pharisees seem to expect Jesus to take such action and seek to accuse him of being a lawbreaker based on their belief that the Sabbath prohibited such "work."
Mark 3:1-6 is a parallel account of the healing mentioned in Matthew 12:9-13. In this report, Jesus is presented as the one who draws attention to the crippled man by posing the question regarding what is lawful to be done on the Sabbath. As in Matthew's account, however, no one is attested to having requested Jesus to heal the man. Rather, Mark even more so than Matthew seems to imply that Jesus took the initiative to do so.
Luke 6:6-11 is yet one more parallel account of the healing of a man with a crippled hand. Luke's account is nearly identical to Mark's.
Luke 7:11-17, to my mind, is the most touching story of any healing performed by Jesus as recorded in Scripture, being underscored by its having been solely initiated by him. As Jesus is entering a small town, he encounters a funeral procession for a widow's only son. "When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her...," Luke tells us. Entirely on his own initiative he speaks words of comfort to her and then proceeds to raise her son from the dead. The story is a poignant window into the heart of Jesus when one considers the hardships widows faced in the ancient world. These would have been compounded now that the only other male in her immediate family, her only son, had just died.
Luke 13:10-17 records the healing of a woman who had been crippled for 18 years. Once again Luke indicates that Jesus took the initiative. "When Jesus saw her, he called her forward," and spoke words of freedom to her and then healed her.
Luke 14:1-6 documents another instance in which Jesus stands in tension with the Pharisees over whether healing is lawful on the Sabbath. Once again Jesus is presented as raising the issue by calling attention to a man who is present and suffers from abnormal swelling of his body. He then proceeds to heal him without any prior request to do so.
John 5:1-15 relates the story of Jesus healing an invalid who had suffered for 38 years. Once again the language used clearly implies that Jesus took the sole initiative to heal the man. "When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, 'Do you want to get well?'" John goes on to tell us that the man did not even know who it was who healed him!
John 9:1-7 records the healing of the man born blind. Once again the language employed suggests that Jesus took the initiative. "As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth." His disciples assumed his condition must have been due to either his own or his parents' sin, and asked Jesus about this. After denying the validity of their assumption, he then proceeded to engage the man, giving him instructions, which after they were followed resulted in the man's miraculous healing.
It should be pointed out that these should not be thought of as an exhaustive list of all the healings which Jesus himself initiated. As with all his other deeds and words recorded in the Gospels, they are a divinely selected sample representative of his prolific public ministry. As John put it, if everything Jesus did were written down, "I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."
There are two points I wish to underscore by having cited these various incidences. First, it is wrong to teach that God will only heal someone if they have enough faith. Faith certainly pleases God, but it is not an absolute prerequisite for someone to receive blessing from God. Jesus himself taught that "(Y)our Father in heaven...causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Of course faith is emphasized in Scripture as honoring God, and unbelief is flatly judged to be sin. Yet it cannot be accurately taught that unless one has faith, God will never bless you. True, ordinarily one should not expect to receive specifically requested blessings from God, if one does not have faith. However, the absence or weakness of faith does not preclude God from sovereignly exercising his power out of goodness and mercy to bless us in spite of ourselves. On the other hand, faith is clearly necessary to access God's grace which saves us from our sin and grants to us all the privileges and benefits of God's salvation procured for us in Christ.
The second point is simply that God is incredibly gracious and good. Although one could instead criticize God for his apparent failure to act on behalf of all who suffer, the one who has faith sees in the texts cited above the love of God manifested in the person of his Son, through whom he has provided for our eventual full redemption. Although this world is marked by suffering and many sorrows, yet we see in Jesus' self-initiated healings a glimpse of God's goodness, compassion, and mercy, as well as a sign which ultimately points to God's promise to renew creation and restore all things. This will be accomplished when Jesus returns to earth from heaven. For that day let us labor, live, and pray.
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