The Miracles of Jesus | |||||
# | Miracle | Matthew | Mark | Luke | John |
1 | Jesus Turns Water into Wine | 2:1-11 | |||
2 | Jesus Heals an Official's Son | 4:43-54 | |||
3 | Jesus Drives Out an Evil Spirit | 1:21-27 | 4:31-36 | ||
4 | Jesus Heals Peter's Mother-in-Law | 8:14-15 | 1:29-31 | 4:38-39 | |
5 | Jesus Heals Many Sick at Evening | 8:16-17 | 1:32-34 | 4:40-41 | |
6 | First Miraculous Catch of Fish | 5:1-11 | |||
7 | Jesus Cleanses a Man With Leprosy | 8:1-4 | 1:40-45 | 5:12-14 | |
8 | Jesus Heals a Centurion's Servant | 8:5-13 | 7:1-10 | ||
9 | Jesus Heals a Paralytic | 9:1-8 | 2:1-12 | 5:17-12 | |
10 | Jesus Heals a Man's Withered Hand | 12:9-14 | 3:1-6 | 6:6-11 | |
11 | Jesus Raises a Widow's Son in Nain | 7:11-17 | |||
12 | Jesus Calms a Storm | 8:23-27 | 4:35-41 | 8:22-25 | |
13 | Jesus Casts Demons into a Herd of Pigs | 8:28-33 | 5:1-20 | 8:26-39 | |
14 | Jesus Heals a Woman in the Crowd | 9:20-22 | 5:25-34 | 8:42-48 | |
15 | Jesus Raises Jairus' Daughter to Life | 9:18, 23-26 | 5:21-24, 35-43 | 8:40-42, 49-56 | |
16 | Jesus Heals Two Blind Men | 9:27-31 | |||
17 | Jesus Heals a Man Unable to Speak | 9:32-34 | |||
18 | Jesus Heals an Invalid at Bethesda | 5:1-15 | |||
19 | Jesus Feeds 5,000 | 14:13-21 | 6:30-44 | 9:10-17 | 6:1-15 |
20 | Jesus Walks on Water | 14:22-33 | 6:45-52 | 6:16-21 | |
21 | Jesus Heals Many Sick in Gennesaret | 14:34-36 | 6:53-56 | ||
22 | Jesus Heals a Gentile Woman's Demon-Possessed Daughter | 5:21-28 | 7:24-30 | ||
23 | Jesus Heals a Deaf and Dumb Man | 7:31-37 | |||
24 | Jesus Feeds 4,000 | 15:32-39 | 8:1-13 | ||
25 | Jesus Heals a Blind Man at Bethsaida | 8:22-26 | |||
26 | Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind | 9:1-12 | |||
27 | Jesus Heals a Boy with a Demon | 17:14-20 | 9:14-29 | 9:37-43 | |
28 | Miraculous Temple Tax in a Fish's Mouth | 17:24-27 | |||
29 | Jesus Heals a Blind, Mute Demoniac | 12:22-23 | 11:14-23 | ||
30 | Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman | 13:10-17 | |||
31 | Jesus Heals a Man With Dropsy on the Sabbath | 14:1-6 | |||
32 | Jesus Cleanses Ten Lepers | 17:11-19 | |||
33 | Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead | 11:1-45 | |||
34 | Jesus Restores Sight to Bartimaeus | 20:29-34 | 10:46-52 | 18:35-43 | |
35 | Jesus Withers the Fig Tree | 21:18:22 | 11:12-14 | ||
36 | Jesus Heals a Servant's Severed Ear | 22:50-51 | |||
37 | Second Miraculous Catch of Fish | 21:4-11 |
27.3.13
THE MIRACLES OF JESUS
21.3.13
SERMON ON MIRACLES OF JESUS
Jesus' miracles reveal his identity
First, Jesus' miracles reveal his
identity.
This is the big theme controlling
Luke's organization of the material. In the disciples' words of verse 25, Who is this?
Ironically, the demons were in no
doubt. In verse 28, they call him, Jesus, Son of the Most High
God
And the Gentile former demoniac
seemed pretty clear. Look at the lovely parallel in verse 39. Jesus tells him, Return home and tell how much God has done for you. So the
man went away and told all over the town how much Jesus had done for
him.
In short, Jesus does things that
only God can do.
King Canute, the 11th century king,
got this. In the famous story, Canute set his throne by the sea shore and
commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes; but the tide failed
to stop. Canute leaped backwards and said "Let all men know how empty and
worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom
heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws." He then hung his gold crown
on a crucifix, and never wore it again. God created those eternal laws; only he
can subvert them to perform miracles.
Similarly, who else in the entire
history of the world has been able to order demons around, able to heal at a
touch, or able to restore life with a word?
Only God can do these things. The
miracles of Jesus reveal his deity. He is God in human form.
Second, Jesus' miracles reveal God's
kingdom.
To demonstrate his mastery over all
of creation, Jesus could have done it by destroying: how spectacular it would
have been if he'd commanded a volcano to erupt, or an asteroid to smash into
the temple. How spectacular if he'd sent the Roman army mad with demons. How
spectacular to inflict boils on all the Pharisees. How spectacular to strike
Pontius Pilate down with a word.
But Jesus' miracles have no whiff of
the destructive about them. In every case he chooses to bring order instead of
chaos, he chooses to heal instead of harm.
In this way he shows us what God's
kingdom is like.
You see, the creation we live in is
like a wonderful, bright painting that has been obscured by a think layer of
dirt and grime. We can just about make out the underlying picture, but it is
faint, and our world is full, not of brightness, but darkness and evil.
What Jesus does in these miracles is
punch a few holes through the grime so that we can see a speck of the glorious
picture underneath. In Jesus' miracles, we catch a glimpse of creation ordered,
so that never again will 200,000 people perish in an earthquake. We catch a
glimpse of evil banished forever. We catch a glimpse of a world where there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain.
For now, it is only a glimpse.
The miracles are down-payment and guarantee of Jesus' promise to return and
bring the kingdom in full; to wipe away all the grime and restore the picture
in all its glory. He can do it; he will do it.
Those who receive the miracles
The third observation I want to make
is about those who receive the miracles.
In each of the cases we've seen, the
recipients were desperate. There was no human means by which they could
be helped. They had reached the end of the road: Jesus was the only hope they
had left.
This applies equally to the
disciples about to drown, the helpless man possessed by a legion of demons, the
bleeding woman whom no-one could heal, the grieving father whose daughter was
dying. All were desperate, they had nowhere else to turn.
So we learn that Jesus helps the
desperate.
But it's not enough simply to be
desperate. The other thing they have in common is that all of them came to
Jesus. The disciples may not have had much faith, but they had
enough to make them wake their Master. Even the demon-possessed man came to
Jesus: apparently enough sanity prevailed that he came out of the tombs to meet
Jesus on the shore. The woman forced her way through the crowd just to touch
him. Jairus fell at Jesus' feet and pleaded with him to come.
These miracles were done for
desperate people who cast themselves on Jesus as their only hope.
It's worth noticing that these seem
to be the only important qualifications. In other respects, the recipients are
a thoroughly mixed bunch: from Jesus' close friends, to a Gentile man, to a
poor unclean woman, to a prominent leader of the synagogue. Jesus doesn't
discriminate according to who you are: anyone can be desperate; anyone can come
to him.
SERMON ON MIRACLES OF JESUS
Power over Sickness
Luke 8:40–56
First there is Jairus, who falls at
Jesus' feet, begging him to come and heal his twelve-year-old daughter, who is
on the verge of death.
But Jairus will have to wait! This
scene belongs to a poor sick woman who has her own reason for desperation. She
has been bleeding for 12 years: according to the law, this makes her
ceremonially unclean; effectively excluded from all religious life. She is
helpless and powerless, no-one can cure her.
Only, she's heard about this man who
heals. She dares to fight her way through the crushing crowd and merely touch
his cloak. She's not bold enough to demand his attention. She believes, and
desperately hopes that a touch will be enough.
But Jesus notices. He feels the
healing power flow from him: despite the crush of people, and the urgency of
his journey, he knows that a desperate soul has made contact with him.
So he stops: he makes sure that
everyone knows this woman is healed; she is no longer unclean. And he makes
sure that they know that it is his power that has done it.
Jesus has power over sickness.
Power over Death
In scene four, we're back with
Jairus. While Jesus delayed, his daughter has died. Jesus may have power over
sickness, but no-one has power over death. For this little girl it's too late.
I think Jesus' delay was deliberate,
just as in John's gospel, when he hears that his friend Lazarus is sick and
close to death, he deliberately stays away for two more days so that Lazarus
dies.
In this little sequence of
power-plays, there is no value in showing once again that he has power over
sickness. Jesus is going for the big one. He has power over death itself.
So, to everyone's incredulity, Jesus
presses on. And with a mere two words of Aramaic, he brings this little girl
back to life.
Nothing and no-one on Earth has
power over death, yet for Jesus it is effortless.
So there we have four scenes of
desperation, and four demonstrations of power. If I were the kind of man to use
alliteration, I would say that Jesus demonstrated power over destruction,
demons, disease and death. In these scenes we see Jesus exercising power in
every sphere of fallen creation.
SERMON ON MIRACLES OF JESUS
Power over Demons
Luke 4:31-37
Jesus and his disciples make it to a
Gentile region on the other side of the lake, where a demon-possessed man comes
to meet him.
But this is not any demon-possessed
man: this man has many, many demons. A Roman legion had 6000 soldiers: that may
be an exaggeration, but Luke says that many demons had gone
into him
As a result, this man was powerfully
deranged. He was out of control: naked, living in the tombs, fleeing to
solitary places having broken his chains and overpowered his guard. We're faced
with a different sort of chaos.
This wild-man comes out to meet
Jesus, and it's immediately clear who is in control. The demons had complete
power over the man, but at Jesus' word they are helpless. Three times, we're
told, they beg him: they know where the power resides.
Just as Jesus brought calm to the
storm in the lake, so he now brings calm and order into the life of this man.
We find him afterwards sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in
his right mind.
Why did Jesus allow the demons to
destroy the pigs? Well, it is the pigs that show us that this episode was a
genuine encounter with the forces of evil. If it weren't for the pigs we might
be able to say that this was only a miracle of psychology: that Jesus somehow
simply changed the mental state of the man, restoring a deranged man to sanity.
But the destruction of the pigs shows us that the demons were real. Jesus had
confronted the powers of evil and won.
What a scene it must have been as
the maddened herd of pigs raced down the bank into the lake! No wonder the
people were overcome with fear and asked him to leave.
The Miracles of Jesus
Introduction
What do you make of miracles?
Do you
spend more effort praying for miracles to happen, or coming up with reasons why
they won't happen? I mean, do you think we should expect miracles today, or are
you resigned to the idea that God doesn't do miracles any more?
Well, our theme is the
miracles of Jesus.
And there's no shortage of miracles in Luke's gospel that we
could look at.
Luke has chosen to do this quite
deliberately. He's inviting us to put them together, building on one another,
miracle on miracle, and come to a conclusion.
So, let's look at the four scenes
from Jesus' ministry that Luke puts before us.
The power of Jesus
Power over Nature
Luke 8:22-56
Now, due to the geography, localised
violent storms are not unusual on the Sea of Galilee. So, the waves are
crashing against the side of the boat; the wind is shredding the sails; the
planks of the boat are creaking and groaning; the boat is listing and tossing
and filling with water. Even the experienced, professional sailors are scared: Master, Master, we're going to drown
And Jesus has slept through it all:
they had to wake him up. Unconcerned, he simply gets to his feet and says a
word. He rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm
subsided, and all was calm.
The disciples seem more terrified by
this than the storm. In fear and amazement they asked one
another, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they
obey him."
Jesus has power over nature: power
over the storm.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)