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What was Jesus’ last healing miracle while on earth before His crucifixion? It was healing the ear of Caiaphus’ servant Malchus. The story in general is found in all four gospels, but only Luke mentions the actual healing: “But Jesus answered and said, ‘Permit even this.’ And He touched his ear and healed him.” Luke 22:51. So this was His last miracle: healing the servant’s ear.

When I’m thinking about introducing spirituality or a spiritual component to my patients, it almost always comes down to me and the other person in the exam room. That’s where the decision points come for me. What are we going to talk about in this 10 to 15-minute segment? I have to explain all the physical aspects—are we going to get to anything spiritual? There are very few visual stimuli, except maybe a bit of body language. Instead, most of the interaction is auditory, what they’re listening to me say.

When I think about my patients in the context of the healing of Malchus, I think of the children of Israel. 2 Samuel 7:22-24 lays out God’s grand purpose for Israel. They were to be witnesses to the surrounding nations and they were to bring people to Christ. Unfortunately, they did not succeed in this great mission. Here is what Jesus had to say about what happened:

“For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.” Matthew 13:15.

You see a deep conflict within Jesus. He’s the one that had been striving with the people while their hearts and their eyes had been growing dull. You can see how much He wants them as He weeps over the city, “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem…”

Later, we’re with Jesus and His disciples heading to the Garden of Gethsemane. Use your sanctified imagination with me as we follow the story. In Jesus’ day, a garden wasn’t necessarily a botanical garden, full of flowers and trees, but probably a functional garden. Still, this was a place that Jesus often met with His disciples. It was a peaceful place where, for lack of a better term, you and a good friend would always “meet at the coffee shop”. This was a well-known place to you where you had good memories, good conversations, shared your lives together, went through struggles, had sleepless nights. This was a familiar place.

Now see the contrast. Judas and his friends arrive with a detachment of troops with swords, torches, and lanterns. You don’t come to a Jewish peasant, (which Jesus really was,) with these types of things. This is a war-type confrontation.

Judas approaches Jesus and kisses Him multiple times. Mrs. White says, “He kisses Him repeatedly, and appears to weep as if in sympathy with Him in His peril.” Desire of Ages, p. 696. Look at the commotion and all the action. You can imagine the noise, the frenetic pace of it. And in the middle of it all is Jesus—still, peaceful.

So now let’s zoom in to the miracle. It’s interesting that Malchus is remembered by name. I can understand Caiaphus being mentioned by name, as he had some clout, but his servant probably just held stuff for him, ran errands, or perhaps he had some scribing responsibilities. But it mentions his name and I think that is sort of interesting.

Now, Peter actually approaches this servant as a combatant. This is a combatant, war-like situation between Peter and Malchus, where Peter takes a vertical aim and comes down—but only slices off just his right ear. “When Jesus saw what was done, He released His hands, though held firmly by the Roman soldiers, and saying, ‘Suffer ye thus far,’ He touched the wounded ear, and it was instantly made whole.” p. 696.

There’s so much going on—so much commotion, combatant-type interaction, a warlike atmosphere—and what does Jesus do in all this commotion? He still reaches out to Malchus…and makes him whole. Right there you can see how He still wants to reach the Jewish nation, even though they had rejected Him, even though their ears had grown dull.

What kind of a nerve is the auditory nerve? It’s a cranial nerve, the eighth cranial nerve; it goes directly to the brain. Jesus and God work through the cranial nerves, these direct connections to the brain. It then gives you some sense of intimacy as you think of the abstract concept of the Jewish nation not hearing, and you can see that this is really a personal message from God as He uses your eighth cranial nerve to communicate with you.

Let me bring it back to the patient interaction and where the conversation goes. So many of our patients are like the Jewish nation. Unfortunately, the decision to not hear the message of the gospel was made by previous generations. They were never exposed to the message that we were exposed to. But because we were exposed, we have the responsibility to then share it with them. So let’s read some verses that I think may inspire us as we approach our patients who have had their ears cut off, if you will, and their vision blinded.

Isaiah 50:4: “The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned”. We have learned life-giving knowledge, both in medicine and in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. “That I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary.” How many patients do you have coming in that are weary? They don’t even have to say it—you can tell, they’re weary. “He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned.” You have patients that are coming in to you day after day and God wants to awaken their ear for a message as well.

Isaiah 43:7, 8: “Everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory”. How many of our patients were created for God’s glory? Every single one. “I have formed him, yes, I have made him. Bring out the blind people who have eyes, and the deaf who have ears.” These people are not coming to you necessarily for physical healing, although they think that’s why they made the appointment. In reality, God has been bringing to you morning after morning blind people and deaf people and you didn’t even know it.

Going to Matthew 11:5, 6: “The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” This really is Jesus’ ministry.

Finally, Job 33:16: “Then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction.” So many times I get focused with giving my spiel: “We’re going to make four poke-holes about the size of the tip of my finger. We’ll try and do it laparoscopically; afterwards you’re going to go home, you’ll have four band-aids on, you can take those off the next morning, you can shower…” But then, God wants them to be educated in certain things that are outside of just, “You’ve got gallbladder disease and it needs to come out.”

He wants to open the ears of men and seal their instruction—to use that eighth cranial nerve connected directly to the brain. Don’t lose sight of the fact that the patients coming into our offices have had their sins piled on to them from the third and fourth generation, and their ears have been stopped up. Are we going to take the opportunity to seal their instruction, and take advantage of that opportunity to spread the gospel?