"Jesus Is the One Who Performs Miracles" Mark 4: 36-41

Lots of information for this sermon, which sometimes drags the sermon down with too much information.

Notes from Anatomy of the New Testament: A Guide to Its Structure and Understanding:

1.  "the most characteristic miracles in the Synoptics are Jesus' healing, especially the exorcism of demons, which Mark emphasizes (209).

2. When John the Baptist's disciples ask Jesus whether he is the one to come or if they should look for another, Jesus replies"go and tell John what you have seen and heard:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news, " which points out the importance Jesus placed on his miracles (209).

3. nearly 1/3 of the Gospel of Mark is devoted to healings; 30-40 miracles (depending on how you count them) are included in all four gospels (209).

4. In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and Paul's writings, the miracles are not a sign of Jesus' messiahship (or at least Jesus does not seem to want them used that way).  In the Gospel of John, however, miracles do serve as a sign of who Jesus was (210).

5.  There is a theme in the Synoptics that suggests that "Jesus' power is not in mighty works, but in his crucifixion and death" (210).  I might note that Mario and I were discussing miracles today, and he asked the question, "What does it tell us that Jesus did not perform a miracle and come down off the cross?"  It has me wondering which is more important:  the miracles Jesus did perform, or the miracles Jesus did not perform!

6.  "In the first century, indeed in the New Testament itself, Jesus is not the only miracle worker" (see Acts 8:9-24) (210).  

7. The apocryphal gospels (those writings about Jesus that are not considered to be true or to have the authority of Scripture) often reflect a need to expand Jesus' miracles, which leads to stories like Jesus stretching a piece of wood that was cut to short to help his carpenter father Joseph (211).

8.  The Gospels do not contain the word "miracle" (211).

9.  "jesus' miracles are signs that the eschatological kingdom of God is breaking in." (212).  In other words, jesus' miracles signify that the kingdom of God is at hand.

10.  The Synoptics have basically four types of miracles:  exorcisms, healings, resuscitations, and nature miracles (exorcisms are not found in the Gospel of John) (213).

11.  "Miracle stories claim that a power is at work which is personal concern -- that is, the will of God, which declares itself personal at a point where it is not expected" (219)

Other thoughts:

1.  I am remembering the "Miracle on Ice, " when the US hockey team defeated the Soviet hockey team in the Olympics.  A miracle because it was totally unexpected.  when people call it a miracle, are they suggesting that God intervened for the US to win?  It makes me wonder how we use the word miracle.

2.  Gordon notes that she struggles with how to explain miracles; she then adds: “but why I, unlike Jefferson, would not excise Jesus' miracles from the New Testament is that read not literally but as signs, they are compelling, narratively, humanly. They witness Jesus' acknowledgment of human affliction, and unlike the televangelists or the priest in Fellini's mega-pilgrimage, they are intensely personal encounters in which transformation of a profound sort occurs.” Reading Jesus: A Writer's Encounter with the Gospels, Mary Gordon, (105)

3.  The greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.