Miracles & Mercy
Click Here to Download This Week's Bulletin
John 4:46-54
Signs
Wherever Jesus went, people celebrated! It’s easy to understand why. He was healing people - from all sorts of diseases. In today’s reading we see two amazing miracles of healing.
A Roman official comes to Jesus and asks Jesus to heal his son. The boy isn’t with him, he’s at home in bed, a full day’s walk away. Jesus simply speaks…and the boy is healed! This reminds me of God’s power in the opening verses of Genesis. God spoke, and the world was created. God spoke and there was life! Jesus spoke and this man’s son was healed!
The second story continues the same theme. A man who had been physically disabled for at least 38 years (maybe all his life)…he tells Jesus how helpless he feels. Jesus has mercy on him and speaks to the man, saying, “Stand up, take your mat and walk,” and…the man is healed! He stands up! He picks up his mat and walks.
Incredible demonstrations of power and mercy! The Gospel writer describes these miracles as “Signs.” I love this! For anyone who’s open to see it, these actions of Jesus are “signposts” that point to the fact that Jesus is divine.
God is present
But there is more…
The miracles Jesus performs are not just random, spectacular stunts. No, these are deliberate actions. In part, each miracle is a sign that God dwells with us and is at work in this world (in Jesus).
But, let me take a moment to comment on how we think about miracles. I find that most people in western cultures after the enlightenment (like the USA)…either don’t believe in miracles at all or have a very different view of miracles than what existed in first century Israel. A common view among us today is to imagine that the world is something like this:
• The super-natural world is somewhere up here and the natural world down here – and never the twain shall meet. (This is based on an enlightenment idea beginning in the 17th and 18th centuries which still influences us today – that idea is called, “DEISM”. DEISM views God a bit like a clock maker. The clock maker creates a clock with all its complexity. But when it’s finished the clock maker steps back and leaves the clock to work on its own. God, is viewed like this…like a clock maker who created the world, stepped back, and has no further involvement).
• In this worldview, miracles seem to be times when God reaches down…does something supernatural, and then disappears again. I think that may be how a lot of people today, perhaps a lot of us, view miracles.
That’s not at all what’s going on in the New Testament.
Jesus’ presence among us and His miracles are signs that God, the Creator of the world…is still at work, just as God always promised (throughout the Old Testament). This God is not absent – like a clock maker. God is present and active, and dwelling with God’s people.
Miracles pointed to Jesus’ Identity and Mission
Of course… if God dwells with us, you might ask, why don’t we see miracles every day? If God dwells with us…where are all the miracles?
While this is might be a natural impulse, we only have to look at Jesus’ life and ministry in the first century to notice that, although he performed miracles…Jesus did not cure everyone or remove all disease, suffering, and death from the world. Jesus’ miracles were signs that revealed that
1) God is present with us in Jesus…and
2) these signs also pointed to God’s mission - what God values.
The two signposts in today’s lesson are very different from each other when you look at what they say about God’s mission. In one, we see a Roman Official, probably not a Jewish person…but this Roman has faith in Jesus and trusts Jesus. And Jesus blesses him with a miraculous healing of his son. This sign is like BREAKING NEWS or a flashing neon sign that says that God is here for the gentiles too! That was BIG news with Jesus.
The second miracle, at the pool of Bethsaida, is also BREAKINGA NEWS. Unlike the Roman official who has faith and seeks Jesus – this crippled man doesn’t seek Jesus at all. Jesus comes to him. In Bethsaida Jesus seeks out someone who is lost and feeling hopeless. This miracle doesn’t come to a person with great faith in Jesus. Instead, Jesus seeks out this cripple and heals him…even though we never hear that the crippled man trusts that Jesus will do this. So miracles are not a response to someone having enough faith. Don’t let anyone tell you that if you only believed more you would be healed.
The miracles of Jesus were signs pointing to His divinity and His mission – including that God’s love is for ALL people, and Jesus seeks out even the most marginalized, not based on how much faith they have but based on God’s unconditional love!
Do Miracles still Happen Today?
But what about miracles today? Does God still perform miracles. And if so, why not heal…(you fill in the blank with what’s on your heart – your illness, your disability, or that of someone you love)?
This is a tough topic, and I’m really hesitant to talk about miraculous healings because I know that we are NOT in control of God. God isn’t like a vending machine, where we put in our prayer and out pops what we wanted. But, yes, I do believe supernatural miracles happen sometimes. I shared in our Monday Bible Study group how I broke my knee as a child. There I sat in the emergency room with my knee visibly swelling, in too much pain to walk, and waiting to go in for an x-ray. My dad was charismatic, and he knelt down beside me, put his hand gently on my knee and we prayed for healing. When they called me into the x-ray room, there was no more swelling and no more pain. The x-ray showed no damage whatsoever, and I stood up and walked out of the hospital. Praise God!
But miracles so rarely happen. I’ve prayed for countless people and supernatural healing is very rare in my personal experience. I can’t explain why God chooses to act in different ways.
But, I love an insight from John Wesley – the founder of the Methodist or “Wesleyan” tradition. Wesley wrote extensively about the miracle of healing. But he 5 different ways that Jesus performs healing miracles:
• Sometimes Jesus does heal directly and supernaturally
But Jesus preforms miracles through other means as well:
• Jesus heals through doctors and medicine
• Jesus heals through the human body’s healing power (nature)
• Jesus heals through peace in suffering (peace that passes all understanding)
• Jesus heals through victorious dying (victorious crossing)
You and I are Signposts too
In the first century, Jesus miracles were signposts pointing to the presence and mission of God in Jesus. Today, the signposts that point to Jesus’ presence and mission include every follower of Jesus – everyone stirred by the Holy Spirit to bring healing in this broken world.
• Community members feeding the 5,000 who are terrorized and sheltering across our state today – helping people they don’t even know! – These are signposts pointing to God!
• People being given grace in the form of rental assistance… - You are signposts people of God!
• People overcoming hate and fear – while loving their neighbor
o One Latina woman I know has a stockpiled supplies to hand out to her neighbors.
o Another Latina friend is herself delivering food and driving people to appointments – believing she is called to do so. – You are signposts of God at work among us!
• I’m just waiting to hear one day when the oppressors in our streets today will speak of their hearts changing because of the love they saw in those who resisted – You are signposts!
You and I are active participants in God’s healing today! Whether we get to be instruments of physical healing or miracles of peace, love, inclusion, and compassion by doing the little things right so that our neighbors will experience God’s presence through us. These are a miracles, my brothers and sisters. Whether it’s jump-starting a stranger’s car, giving to rental assistance for people in hiding, or blowing a whistle when ICE comes around; our neighbors sense the wideness of God’s blessing through our small acts of kindness.
So, let’s not obsess over waiting for supernatural healing. Jesus is present and working today. Celebrate the healing presence of God in and through “SIGNPOSTS” that transform this world one neighbor at a time … by speaking kindly, loving recklessly, gifting our time, and serving joyfully in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Pastor Doug Cox