No Special Effects

Just read this in Matthew 17 where Jesus pays his tax in a rather miraculous way...

"However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself."
Matthew 17:17

It's interesting the way Jesus does miracles. There are no special effects. If I was Jesus I would be tempted to stretch out my hand, have a beam of light descend from Heaven onto it and have the coin materialise out of nothing. There would be no mistaking your power and authenticity.

But his miracles don't seem to go like that. Most of the time he leaves space for faith. He does miracles, but in quite an ordinary, understated way. Like when he feeds the five thousand. You get the impression that people couldn't really see where the food was coming from. It didn't fall out of the sky, materialise in front of them and drop into their hands. All they knew was that Jesus was giving out food, and it kept coming.

When Jesus healed people, there were no bolts of lighting, no thunder, no earth tremors. He just speaks and it happens. You just see the end result, not the process. When he raises people from the dead, there's no awesome sight of regeneration. No elaborate process of a corpse gradually coming back to life. They just wake up as if they were sleeping.

Interesting. Jesus, even when performing miracles, seems to leave room for faith. You can find another explanation if you want to. You can call it coincidence, some sort of elaborate trick, or create some bizarre scientific explanation. Faith is always required, even with the supernatural.

(The only exceptions I can think of are when Jesus walks on water and when he has the transfiguration on the mountain. But even then it's just for the disciples – a very select few who get a special insight.)

Twelve Long Years

"And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, "If I touch even his garments, I will be made well." And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my garments?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, 'Who touched me?'" And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
Mark 5:25-34

There are some really interesting points in this story. Some that are just remarkable and stand-out. I imagine Jesus performed a multitude of miracles and only a selection were included in the four gospels. As John says at the end of his account:

"Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."
John 21:25

We might concluded that there were a fair number of miracles to choose from for the gospel writers. I imagine each one was carefully picked for the particular way they shine a light on the nature of Jesus, of faith, healings and miracles.

What's interesting about this story is the woman's level of faith, especially after twelve years of suffering and exhausting every avenue for her healing. I imagine she prayed a lot. I imagine she probably thought God could heal her at any time if he chose. She probably saw those doctors and physicians as channels of God's grace and healing. And yet she suffered, for twelve years, with no answer to prayer, and totally depleted her bank account in the process.

I imagine that most of us would be pretty disheartened at that point. Especially as her disease made her a social outcast. No support group, probably not much community at all. How easy it would be to feel overlooked by God and utterly depressed. Like you had been hung out to dry. When a new preacher rolled into town with a healing ministry, she might well have been tempted to think 'oh no, not again'. More prayers, elevated hope, and yet more disappointments to come.

But her faith is exactly the opposite of what you might expect. Her faith levels were exceedingly high.

"If I touch even his garments, I will be made well."

Unbelievable. Where did that faith come from? And the nature of it. I'm pretty sure that there's nowhere in Scripture that says you have to touch Jesus to get healed. There's plenty of examples where it doesn't happen that way. Not to mention that he was surrounded by a crowd where loads of people were pressing into him. Presumably without getting healed.

Even though her theology probably wasn't spot-on, her faith was off the scale. There isn't even a hint of doubt in her. I'm pretty sure she had taken a massive risk as well. Ceremonially unclean, yet amongst the people, rubbing up and touching them, risking total public humiliation if she was exposed. She hadn't done this as a whim. It was deliberated, planned, premeditated and must have taken a lot of guts.

What's of particular interest is the way she receives her healing from Jesus. She was completely healed by Jesus without him even knowing it until after the event. She hadn't presented her request, spoken, looked him in the eye... nothing. Faith was the key ingredient. And you might say, the only ingredient, in this story.

I can't think of another story where Jesus heals unknowingly. Every other case sees him presented with a sick person before healing. This story really hones in on the power of faith as it literally is the only thing that healed this woman.

All through the four gospels (and the book of Acts) you see faith and healing go hand-in-hand. You seem to hear the same phrase from Jesus over and over, "Your faith has made you well", "Your faith has healed you" and "In accordance to your faith...". In his home town Jesus was unable to do any mighty miracles because of their lack of faith (Mark 6:4-6). Jesus was unable.

It's tempting to steer away from the subject because our unanswered prayer might be diagnosed as a lack of faith. Which is like rubbing salt into the wound of a difficult situation. But let's not forget that this woman struggled for twelve years and had a remarkable faith. Twelve years. That's a long old time. Perhaps her greatest act of faith was continuing to believe, to press on, hope and take new opportunities and risks after twelve long years of suffering. That's pretty impressive.

Only One Question

There's so many questions surrounding Christianity like pain and suffering, the Big Bang, evolution and the hiddenness of God. There's so many things that clutter your mind. But what you realise after a while is that everything stacks behind this one big question.

Was Jesus Christ the Son of God?

If he was, and is, nothing is impossible.

The belief that a man can be subject to the most brutal and complete death, entombed, and then raised back to life three days later is one that is totally miraculous. That sort of thing just doesn't happen. But it did. According to Josh McDowell it is the most well documented fact in history. (See his book, The Resurrection Factor).

If Jesus Christ was God himself, all these other questions become secondary.

Does God exist? Absolutely.
Is the universe six thousand or thirteen billion years old? Either. He could create it in an instant.
Is the Bible the perfect word of God? Jesus seems to think so.
Is there a reason and an answer for every question you could possibly think of? There absolutely must be.

So all in all, Jesus really is the cornerstone. Every line of thought, every reason, every question and answer stems from him. When it comes to his divinity, we have an inexplicable sum of evidence, and no explanation to the contrary.

The Hiddenness of God (Part 3)

I watched 'The Finger of God' DVD by Darren Wilson yesterday and showed it at Life Group. Absolutely amazing. It's a film documenting the physical works of God around the world. From people mysteriously receiving gold teeth in church services, to street evangelism and healings, to the dead being raised (some dead as long as four days).

It seems God is prepared to revealed himself in quite remarkable ways. In many of these places – Mozambique, California, China – healing miracles are performed to show people God is real, and then the gospel is preached. Often it seems the whole purpose of the healings is to open people up to the gospel message and pave the way for salvation.

What really strikes you when you watch this is that God doesn't seem hidden at all. He provides real, tangible proof of his existence when asked, and is more than happy to demonstrate his power to a people that have no knowledge of him.

It makes you think – perhaps healings and miracles are inextricably linked to evangelism and the gospel message. Maybe they're not just meant for church on a Sunday, but out on the streets, in everyday life.

Another interesting point was that these healings, miracles, signs and wonders seem just as available to the church in the West as to the poorer, persecuted Christians around the world.

As an old 'No Fear' poster once read, "You miss 100% of the shots you never take". Maybe we just need to actually pray for some people.