14 When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.16 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:“He took up our infirmities     and bore our diseases.”REFLECTIONSWritten by Brian MacgeorgeIn these verses Matthew records two healing events. First, he heals Peter’s mother-in-law, and then many people are brought to him and he casts out spirits or heals them. We are not told whether any of these people had faith and or whether they responded with transformed lives. So why does Matthew mention them?It might be partly because these were some of Jesus’ earliest healing miracles. But there is something else about these events that Matthew wants us to know. In verse 17, he tells us that they were to fulfill Isaiah 53:4, which says: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases”. Matthew is reminding us that a long time before Jesus came, God had promised through Isaiah to send a Servant-Messiah who would relieve their pain and suffering. So the big deal here is that Jesus is doing the things that God had promised the Messiah would do! Matthew is not saying that this COULD be the Messiah, but that Jesus IS FULFILLING that promise; he IS the Messiah! In fact, when we look back at the whole of Isaiah 53, it shows without a doubt that this man Jesus is the one God promised to send. Isaiah 53 points not just to Jesus’ healing miracles, but to how he took up and dealt with our sin through his suffering, crucifixion, burial, resurrection and ascension.These healings are important to me because they are proof that God keeps his promises, and sometimes I need to be reminded of that.Only this morning, two of our grandchildren suffered grave disappointment from a failed promise. The promise, which they found online, was a method to create a ‘bouncing egg’ by soaking a raw egg in vinegar. The resulting egg burst open upon first impact with the kitchen floor! The children were very sad that the promise had not been fulfilled. I pointed out that this was a reminder that life comes with many unfulfilled promises, but we know that in Jesus, all God’s promises ARE fulfilled!“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 1:20)QUESTIONWhat kind of healing can Jesus give us that is even better than being healed when we are sick? (You could look up Isaiah 53:5.)ABOUT THE AUTHORBrian is a member of our Fairfield early and morning congregations.