It’s so easy to forget the ways the Lord has blessed us and provided for us. In this passage, we see Jesus provide for a skeptical group of apostles not once, but twice.
Tag: miracles
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Miracles and belief. John 14:11
In John 14:8, the Apostle Phillip says: Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.
For many of us, that’s a relatable request. I think we all have times where God can seem distant or hard to find.
One of the ways God is made known is through miracles.
As Jesus continues to respond to Philip, he says in John 14:11: Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
For this post, I want to focus on the second part of that verse. Where Jesus tells Philip to believe on the account of his works. Now under the umbrella of works, it could certainly be the righteous life Jesus lived and the teaching that he gave.
But within John, I think the works more specifically refers to his miraculous signs. That those are what authenticate a heaven-sent ministry in the world.
The first sign that Jesus does in John’s Gospel is when he turns water into wine at the Wedding Feast at Cana. And in response, John’s Gospel gives the post-script:
John 2:11: This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
Jesus did not turn water into wine simply to help out at a wedding feast but it was a display of his glory. And all throughout the first half of John, we see these signs that Jesus does. Healing the sick, feeding multitudes, walking on water. And before going to the cross, his greatest sign is when he raises Lazarus from the dead in John 11.
All of them done for specific reasons in pointing to Jesus, who he is, and the heavenly ministry he was advancing in the world. They show his power and dominion. They show fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies of the things which would happen in a Messianic age.
They confirm and authenticate who Jesus is. And so in Jesus’ response to Philip, what he is telling Philip is that those miraculous signs are a legitimate reasons to believe in Jesus.
And certainly the greatest miracle of Jesus, his resurrection from the dead was still to come. Miracles are a reason why we too can believe in the Lord. The resurrection is the basis for our faith and what we believe. It is the heart of the gospel and the purpose of the gospel. It’s the greatest authenticator on Jesus, who he was, who he said he was, and the fulfillment of his promises to the world. And it because of his resurrection that we have the hope of eternal life and the forgiveness of our sins.
Just as Jesus told the apostle Philip to look at his works, that we too can look at his works and his greatest work as a reason to believe as an example of God revealing himself to the world.
“Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
God is still at work in our world. Miracles still happen today.
Miracles
I’ll define a miracle as an extraordinary event with supernatural intervention intended for divine purposes. Miracles defy explanation along scientific or rational grounds. They’re transcendent.
A 2010 Pew research study found that 80 percent of Americans believe in miracles. A 2004 survey by Louis Finkelstein for the Institute for Religious and Social Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary surveyed 1,100 doctors and found that three-fourths of them believed in miracles and more than half thought that they had witnessed a miracle.
Doctors. Who are the most highly educated people in our society and who are also those who are those who are treating those battling sicknesses and diseases. In another survey, 38 percent of Americans claim to have personally experienced a miracle.
That’s tens of millions of people. Are all of those legitimate miracles? Probably not. But there are mysterious and undocumented healings and situations that defy medical explanation.
I’m not talking about some prosperity gospel preaching faith healer charlton who’s enriching himself or herself to a crowded auditorium in doing a glorified magic show that they call faith healings.
But what about the people who are under medical supervision and they experience healings that defy medical explanation and which run contrary to how human bodies respond to treatment?
Miracles should be an encouragement to us. They should give us hope that God is working and active in the world. When we’re tempted to mirror the words of Philip and say: show us the Father, and it is enough for us
We have the miraculous signs during the ministry of Jesus and the ways in which the Lord intervenes in the world today. And so I’d like to share two miraculous stories.
A pastor healed in real time
Duane Miller was a pastor in Texas who came down with a case of the flu in 1990.
Preaching on Sunday, his throat was bothering him and his voice sounded hoarse and scratchy. He eventually recovered from the flu but his voice remained scratchy and strained. And it stayed that way.
The flu virus had damaged his vocal cords. And just to be heard, with his damaged vocal cords, Miller had to scream at the top of his lungs. He saw specialist after specialist. The issue still didn’t improve. The following year, Miller resigned his position as pastor.
Being able to talk…Is pretty important for being a preacher. Over nearly three years, he visited 63 specialists. An international consortium of throats specialists who reviews records from particularly difficult cases told him that his voice would never improve.
By 1993, Miller and his family had moved to Houston and were attending a large Baptist church. He was asked to teach an adult Sunday school class. He resisted, but people in the class promised to suffer through his raspy voice.
Being a large church, the Sunday school class was very big and so they recorded the audio of the Sunday school class. In the lesson, Miller was talking about the subject of healing and saying that God does not always bring healing in this life while teaching from Psalm 103:
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, 3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
I share a video that was taken from the Sunday school where the pastor’s voice was restored. You’ll notice how raspy his voice is. And the clip shows the audio of what he is saying, but pay attention when he says “I have had, and you have had in times past pit experiences.”
In mid-sentence, Miller’s voice was restored. He says “I don’t understand this right now” as emotion starts to overcome his voice and you start to hear people who had witnessed this being to clap and cheer.
Upon later medical evaluation, doctors said that Miller’s voice had fully recovered. Even the scar tissue disappeared. Miller later returned to ministry and nearly 30 years later, his voice remains normal.
Hospice patient restored
In the Case for Miracles, Lee Strobell interviews New Testament scholar Craig Keener who’s a professor Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky.
I consider Keener to be one of the best New Testament scholars in the world. A former atheist who found faith, Keener wrote a 2,000 page two volume book on miracles which gives numerous case studies from around the world.
In Case for Miracles, Keener talks about the well documented story of a Chicago area woman named Barbara Cummisky Snyder who was diagnosed by the Mayo Clinic, one of the world’s leading hospitals, with progressive multiple sclerosis.
Keener has interviewed Barbara and two physicians who treated her.
In the book, a board certified physician who treated Barbara and who had performed over 20,000 operations called ed her “one of the most hopelessly ill patients I ever saw.”
Numerous doctors had agreed with the diagnosis. She was high school aged when originally diagnosed. Barbara battled these health issues for 16 years. She spent months in hospitals.
She loss the function in one of her lungs. Her other lung operated at less than 50 percent capacity.
She had lost control of her bowels and had to have catheters and colostomy bags attached to remove bodily waste.
Legally blind. She was on a feeding tube. Eventually she need continuous oxygen. She had a tracheotomy. By 1981, she hadn’t walked in seven years and was bed-ridden. Her hands and feet had strained into deformed positions. She went on hospice in 1981 and was given less than six months to live.
One day, someone called Moody Radio Station and asked people to pray for Barbara. More than 400 people wrote letters to Barbara’s church saying they were praying for her. On Pentecost Sunday 1981, Barbara’s aunt came to her home to read some of the letters to her.
Barbara would later say that she heard a man’s voice tell her to get up – though there were no men in the room. “Get up and walk.”
Barbara stood up, removed her oxygen and began to walk on legs that hadn’t supported her body weight in years. Breathing fine, her vision was restored.
That night, Barbara attended church with her family at Wheaton Wesleyan Church.
During the service, when the pastor asked if anyone had any announcements, Barbara walked to the center aisle and walked toward the front of the sanctuary.
Upon further medical evaluation, Barbara’s lung function had been fully restored.
At the time of writing the Case for Miracles, 35 years had passed since Barbara’s recovery without a recurrence of her illness.
Her case so defied explanation that two doctors who treated Barbara each wrote books about her case.
God is working.
Conclusion
There are times in his goodness that God supernaturally intervenes.
Why not always? A skeptical person might ask. Because the world is fallen and sinful. We don’t deserve any of his grace. So instead of asking why he doesn’t eternally do what we think he should do, we should be thankful for the glimpses we get of God’s power and to remember the goodness of a God who loves us and who is active in the world.
Furthermore, God never says that he will always bring every miraculous intervention that we might want in this life.
It is in heaven that: He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
Also, if God always did what we wanted him to do, he wouldn’t be God. We would be. But he is greater than us. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways.
In John 11, when Jesus learns that his friend Lazarus is ill, he does not immediately go to him.
He says:
This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4).
Jesus knew that Lazarus would die and he knew he was going to raise him.
On a much smaller scale, I think of Pastor Duane Miller who we talked about earlier. Losing his ministry and spending three years with those voice issues. Not the worst thing that’s ever happened to someone.
But undoubtedly a grueling experience.
He went through some difficult seasons in those three years.
But God had a plan to use him for a tremendous purpose in impacting people’s lives all over the world with his testimony.
God is good.
And he is working.
We don’t always get the miracle we’re hoping for.But God is no less good. He is no less at work in the world. He is no less sovereign.
All things really do work for good for those that love the Lord (Romans 8:28).
And we must remember the Lord’s goodness.
Philip pleaded:
Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.
But that’s often not so simple.
People are fickle. We’re sinful.
A person can see something that they think if miraculous yet not really appreciate the source.
A person can hear about something miraculous but not really have their life transformed by it.
Because it’s not just about seeing something impressive, or unexpected.
At the end of the day, we’re called to faith and belief in this great God.
Remembering God. His goodness, his gospel, and his faithfulness. Everyday.
The miracles of life can stir and encourage our faith. But we must also pursue a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
Living lives where we remember what God has done. Not just the big, spectacular moments, but how he has sustained us and our families throughout our lives.
And appreciating what God is doing today.
Throughout the Old Testament, it’s constantly pointing back to the Exodus. The Passover meal was to be celebrated annually. Really with all of the Old Testament holidays, they were meant to remember. To remember various ways in which the Lord had blessed his people.
And what does Jesus say at the Last Supper? When he breaks the bread?
“Do this in remembrance of me.”
For as long as we eat the bread and drink the cup, we remember his death until he comes.
We’re called to remember the greatest miracle of the New Testament, Jesus’ glorious resurrection from the dead.
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A long-distance healing. Studying John 4:49-54
In John 4, a Roman official – whose son is seriously ill – comes to Jesus to see what the Lord can do. In the passage, we build up to a miraculous healing that Jesus does. In this sign, Jesus will point back to the Prophet Elijah in the Old Testament.
A divine intervention
John 4:49
The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
The man is undeterred by the rebuke that Jesus has given.He’s not arguing with the Lord. He’s simply pleading with Jesus to intervene.
Keep in mind, that this man is an official of the Roman government. He’s prestigious. We see the humility that he shows to Christ.
“Sir, come down before my child dies.”
Verse 50:
Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.”
That’s a very interesting direction that Jesus has given to the man. He’s not saying “Ok, let’s go.”Instead, he tells the man to go home and that his son will live.
And the official listens.
Second part of verse 50:
The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.
A picture of faith
He trusts in the promise of Christ. He has faith in the word that the Lord Jesus has told him.
We also don’t always get grand signs of what is to come. It is a matter of trusting the Lord is faithful to all that he has promised. That’s exactly what the Roman official does here. We need to take the Lord at his word.
Verse 51:
As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering.
John’s recording of the event is not hugely dramatic. What Jesus has said would happen happened.
Verse 52 into 53:
So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.”
We see the power in the promise and word of Christ. As he was telling the father this, 20 miles away, his son was being healed.
Continuing in verse 53:
And he himself believed, and all his household.
The man believed.
Faith cannot be entirely rooted on the miraculous. But that’s not to say that God never uses a monumental moment to bring a person to himself. For this man, trusting in what Jesus had told him and then seeing the fulfillment of that promise led him to believe in Jesus.
Not only for the man, but him and his whole household believed. It was a transformative event in all of their lives to see what Jesus had done.
This story is reminiscent of another healing which occurred in the Old Testament, during the ministry of Elijah.
Elijah in 1 Kings 17
In 1 Kings 17, there’s another event when a child is very sick. The prophet Elijah takes the boy and pleads with the Lord to heal him.
Beginning in verse 21 into 22:
O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” 22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah.
In verse 23, after the boy had been revived, Elijah says to the mother “your son lives.”
A long-distance miracle
In our passage in John, when the Roman officer comes to Jesus, Jesus says to him “your son will live.” Elijah has to be in physical contact with the child when he is healed. Jesus heals at a distance.
Elijah asks God to heal the boy, Jesus doesn’t. In this sign, among other things, we see that Jesus is greater than Elijah and we again see that he provides something greater than the Old Testament.
We see the perfect knowledge of Jesus. He knew that the son would live.
We also see the sovereignty of Jesus. He could speak authoritatively to the man that his son would live.
The second sign of Jesus
The passage concludes by saying: 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.
Jesus had done other miracles, but this was the second one he had done in Judea. In the first sign, Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding feast. In that event, John said that Jesus had revealed his glory through that sign.
In this sign, Jesus had healed a sick child near death many miles away. We see that the signs are very different from each other. The first sign is at a public event, the second sign is within a home.
The first sign is at a time of great joy, at a wedding feast. The second is in a very sad time, when someone is ill to the point of death.
In that too, his power and glory are revealed. In that event, it was so powerful in the lives of the people who witnessed it that they believed in Jesus.
In the second sign, Jesus heals a father’s son. But in that, we should be reminded of the gospel because the ultimate sign that Jesus did which points to his glory and power was when he had the Son was not saved.
Jesus was able to save this man’s son because Jesus was the Son who was not saved.
Looking for Jesus
There are lots of reasons why people are drawn to religion, drawn to Christianity, drawn to Jesus. Some people think that it’ll help them through a tough time.
Some people are lonely or insecure and need to feel a sense of belonging. That’s not inherently wrong, by the way. But that isn’t faith. Some people are miserable, and they believe that religion might help them become happier. Others are battling an addiction and they think it’ll help them find victory. Some people are unhappy with who they’ve become, and want better examples.
Now, certainly any of those areas can be a person’s entry point to Christianity. And God can work through those circumstances to bring a person to himself.
But genuine faith needs to move past that. It can’t just be about having a certain feeling or about having a certain area of life now under control.
Faith needs to be rooted in the character of the Lord. Sinful people recognizing their need for redemption and trusting in Jesus and the salvation he promises.
If faith over the long term does not mature into a love for Christ, a recognition of sin, a love for the things of God, then what is it that you’re believing?
Because new problems will arise. New difficulties will arise. You’re still you, which is to say you’re still sinful. Your life will still face difficulties and hardships. We still live in a fallen and sinful world where there is betrayal, and pain, and suffering, and death.
“Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”
If faith is based on what we see, based on circumstances, that is flimsy. Our faith needs to be anchored in the good and sovereign Lord of creation.
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Jesus, water, and wine. Studying John 2:1-12
Summary: In John 2, Jesus and his disciples attend a wedding feast. The feast runs out of wine. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, approaches him about the situation and after saying that his time has not yet come, he performs a miraculous sign when he turns water into wine.
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On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
Jesus is at a wedding feast in Cana, which is a town in Galilee. And the feast runs out of wine. This was a serious faux pas and huge social embarrassment at the time. Now the groom was responsible for the financial burden of the wedding.
In the first century, in this region, weddings could last over a week. Many in the town would have been invited. They were huge parties. So Mary approaches Jesus, saying “they have no wine.” She seems to feel some sense of a burden to try to help out.
Jesus gives a seemingly abrupt response in verse 4. Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
Some translations like the NIV try to soften the language by saying “Dear woman,” but what he literally says is “woman.”
Now if my mom had asked me for something and I said, “woman,” I would have gotten backhanded. But it’s a different culture than our culture, and this should not be taken as a sign of disrespect.
Towards the end of this gospel, when Jesus is on the cross, he entrusts the care of Mary to the Apostle John and he again uses the same word.
John 19:26:
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”
So while it may sound odd to our ears and language, Jesus is not disrespecting Mary.
The hour
Back in our passage, Jesus asks “what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
Throughout John, Jesus refers to his hour, and the hour is referring to the time of his death.
To give just one example. John 17:1, Jesus is praying shortly before his arrest:
“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,
In Verse 5, after Jesus gives his response to Mary, Mary is undeterred. There’s no offense in what he’s said.
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
As I said a few moments ago, we don’t know exactly what she expected.
We all face situations where we have to trust in Jesus and where we don’t know exactly how he will work things out, but we have to trust him, nevertheless.
We have situations with our health, where we don’t know how things will work out. But we have to trust in Jesus. We have situations in our hearts where we struggle with brokenness, despair, depression, but where we must turn to Jesus, even when we may be tempted to think that even he can do nothing. We have situations in relationships where there is so much brokenness and damage that all hope seems lost, but we must turn to Jesus, and depend on Jesus, and lean on Jesus.
He says to Mary my hour has not yet come.
It’s the beginning of his ministry. Everything Jesus does is building up to the crucifixion.
That’s the purpose of his ministry. His hour. His death for a sinful humanity. And part of that seems to also be captured in Jesus’ response to Mary.
This story is showing that Jesus operates based on the will of God, not of Mary. He is not here at the whims of man or of the world. He is here for the divine mission and the divine mission.
2. Resolution
The text tells us in verse 6
Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
So they find six stone water jars. Not just any jars, but jars that were used for Jewish rites of purification. At this wedding feast, water would be poured out onto the hands of the Jews for washing before they ate. Jesus tells them to take these jars of water and to fill them up. Six jars, 20-30 gallons. Upwards of 180 gallons, or by modern standards, roughly 900 bottles of wine or 150 boxes of Franzia.
And Jesus instructs the servants:
“Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
Verse 8: And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it.
Now the story doesn’t explain the process by which Jesus turned the water into wine. We just see the result.
Verse 9: When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew),
So the servants were aware that Jesus had made the wine.
“the master of the feast called the bridegroom10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”
What the master of the feast is saying is that they would normally use the better wine first and then go to the cheap stuff, but when he tastes the wine that Jesus made, he says that it’s the better wine.
Think about that for just a moment. Hundreds of gallons of water. And somehow, Jesus turns it all into premium wine.
Out with the old, in with the new
And we have seen something else of theological significance.
Jesus is showing a transition of the old to the new. He’s using the jars of water used for Jewish purification rituals to do his mighty work. It’s symbolic of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant which Jesus is ushering in.
That’s not saying that he replaced the old covenant in that action. That’s not saying that the people who saw this miracle grasped the significance at the time.
But it’s not just about turning water into wine, Jesus does this miraculous act to point to something greater.
Jesus is Lord of the big things and the small things
Something else that’s important in this passage. I mentioned earlier that running out of wine would have been a huge social embarrassment. But let’s keep in mind, that Jesus intervenes here. It’s not like this was a life and death situation. It’s not the end of the world.
Jesus is Lord of the big things and of the small things. And of everything in between. We need to trust him in all situations and seasons of life. Big and small. And to know that there is no situation that’s too inconsequential for us to approach Jesus. It’s not like we’re nagging him, and if we come to him in the small things, we’ll wear him down in the big things. That Jesus is fully of grace and goodness.
Obviously we turn to Jesus, look to Jesus, pray in the big things, but never feel like something is too small to bring to our Lord.
It’s common after a football game to hear a player thank God when talking to the media. Some people mock this and say “does God really care who wins a game?”
God isn’t a part-time God, he’s a full time God.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says: 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
It doesn’t say to rejoice only when things are good, to pray only for the big things, to give thanks only in the victories. But we should live a life that is devoted to Christ and is lived with a focus on Jesus to the Glory of God. Jesus is the Lord of all things.
