Tag: miracles

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His Presence is Enough

Nature is predictable. It operates on the basis of fixed laws. Release a stone from your hand and it always drops to the ground. Put a kettle of water on a hot stove and the water will boil. A commercial aircraft weighing over 450 tons can supersede gravity and fly because it operates in accordance with laws of aerodynamics. Nature operates in a predictable manner.

This very predictability gives rise to science. Men and women investigate, develop theories, conduct experiments, then form conclusions based on evidence that nature behaves in a certain way under certain conditions.

The Bible teaches that there is a Mind controlling nature. Natural laws are a  way of describing God’s activity in nature. God created nature. God sustains nature.

If an all-powerful God can do that, he can, if he chooses, suspend, or interrupt the natural processes he himself created. He can break into the ordinary course of things in a way that is not natural, but supernatural.

This is what Jesus did. Sometimes he acted in extraordinary ways to meet the needs of people and to demonstrate his authority as the Son of God. These extraordinary acts of God are what we call miracles.

It is not unscientific to believe in miracles. Science has nothing to say about whether miracles may or may not occur. If people object to the possibility of miracles, they do so on religious, not scientific grounds. Science can verify or disprove natural, not supernatural phenomena.

Christianity is a faith which is based upon miracles. God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. Many events in the ministry of Jesus were miraculous signs of his deity. Jesus died on a cross and arose from the dead. He ascended to heaven. He promised to return to earth in power and glory.

For example, there is an event that took place in his early ministry which is a vivid demonstration of Jesus’ miracle-working power. Jesus and his disciples were crossing the Lake of Galilee in a fishing boat. Jesus was asleep in the stern of the vessel. An unusually powerful storm arose. The waves were so high that the disciples feared that the boat would be swamped.

“The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?'” (Mark 4:38). The Bible doesn’t tell us what they expected the Lord to do about the situation. They had seen him perform miracles before. Probably they were hoping for one now.

The next verse says Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the waves saying, “Quiet! Be still!” Then we are told that everything became perfectly calm on the lake. What is this but a supernatural intervention?

The disciples were awestruck. They asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mark 4:41).

This story shows us who Jesus is. He is the God-man. In his humanity, he slept, exhausted after a long day of ministry. In his deity, he demonstrated his miracle-working power over his creation.

The story also contains a hint as to how we might respond to the dangers that erupt in our lives. Jesus had already told his disciples that they would get to the other side of the lake (Mark4:35). Even though he was sleeping, he was with them in the storm. His presence was their guarantee that they would make it to the other side. This was a test of their faith.

There will be times in our lives when we may be tempted to feel that he is unconcerned. We may be tempted to panic when we feel overwhelmed by our circumstances. We may be tempted to forget that he is nearby and has promised never to leave us or forsake us.

As a boy I was taught little song in Sunday school: “With Christ in the vessel we can smile at the storm.” As a pastor, I observed this in the lives of many people of faith and courage who were counting on the Lord to be with them in the storms of life, whether or not he performed a miracle.

They had learned to trust him. I remember one godly lady who had terminal cancer. When I visited her I asked her what the Lord had been saying to her in her illness. Her response taught me a lot about the life of faith. She said the Lord had been saying to her, “Just trust me.”

For her, his presence was enough.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

 

 

 

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A Healing Puzzlement

Reading about the travels and earthly works of Jesus in the gospel of Mark has me puzzling over several details. Why did the Lord Jesus tell people not to spread the word about his healing miracles? Why did he heal comparatively few people when there were so many more who desired healing? Why did he compel his disciples to get into a boat to cross the Lake of Galilee when he knew perfectly well that a dangerous storm was brewing? What happened to the demons he cast out of people?

There are good answers to these questions, and some of them may be found in commentaries. But it is noteworthy that sometime the scholars skip right over the questions I would ask.

One such question occurred to me recently as I read Mark 7:33.  Jesus was asked to attend to the needs of a man who was deaf and speech-impaired. The verse says that Jesus took him aside. I get that. He was showing this disabled man that he had the Lord’s undivided attention. He cared about the individual.

Then the verse says he put his fingers into the man’s ears. Well, that makes sense too. The Lord was using physical touch to convey his awareness of where the problem lay and that he was doing something about it.

He sighed deeply. I don’t think this implies he had any difficulty healing the man. It shows that he was moved with compassion and empathy for the man’s predicament.

Then Jesus looked up toward heaven. This must have been a signal to the man that he was invoking the power of God. God had created this man and God knew about his problem. Jesus’ upward look was an indication to the patient that his help was from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Jesus spoke the healing word: “Ephphatha!” It was a command in the Aramaic language to the man’s senses to “to be opened!” Verse 34 says, “At this, the man’s ears were opened and his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.” 

But there is another detail, one that I do not fully understand. (Apparently the scholars do not either because many of them prefer to leave it unmentioned.) We read that Jesus did a strange thing. “He spit and touched the man’s tongue.” Spit? What did this have to do with healing?

Any suggestion I might give is speculative. Did the Lord want to impart something from his human DNA? This physical manifestation certainly undermines the Gnostic denial of our Lord’s full humanity.

Was he demonstrating that he, and he alone, was the one doing the healing? This healing came only through him, by the power of God. He, the Lord Jesus, transferred spittle from his own tongue to the tongue of the speechless man. Did this physical gesture signify that a physical healing was about to happen?

Another possibility has been suggested. Spittle was considered in ancient times to have healing properties. Now the Lord was certainly not imitating the practices of Egyptian and Babylonian sorcerers! But could it be that he was so fully entering the man’s cultural context that he was willing to use a means that was not unexpected in that day and time, because it had meaning for the patient himself?

This is not the only time Jesus used spit in a healing. In Mark 8:23 he put his spittle on the eyes of a blind man as he healed him. In John 9:6 he made a paste with mud and spittle and applied it as a poultice to the eyes of a blind man. What seems strange and unfamiliar to us, may have been familiar to the people of Jesus’ day. I remain puzzled.

Of these facts I am more certain. Jesus really did heal the man. The circumstances of the healing reveal his compassion, his power, his willingness, and his humility. The story also reveals to us one more convincing evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah sent from God. The prophet Isaiah wrote about the coming of Messiah:

“Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy” (Isaiah 35:5-6).

Pastor Randy Faulkner