My favorite story from the Gospels is found in Mark 4. At the end of a long day teaching and healing, Jesus and the disciples board a small boat on the Sea of Galilee for a night crossing to the other side. Jesus is exhausted, and he goes below deck to sleep. A storm arises. In the original Greek the language suggests tempest, a supernatural, malevolent storm. The boat is buffeted so harshly that it takes on water and risks capsizing. The terrified disciples rouse Jesus and ask him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Jesus then says to the tempest, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind reverts to calm. Jesus then asks the disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
This is one of innumerable examples of Jesus’ miracles throughout the Gospel. Additionally, Jesus exorcises demons, cures the sick, and multiples food for those who hunger. How are we supposed to take these miracles? Are they magic tricks designed to awe and delight? Are they proofs of Jesus’ divinity designed to convince and convert a skeptical audience? I don’t think so.
If we reread virtually all of the healing miracles, for example, the people Jesus heals are not only suffering from biological or psychological ailments. The sufferers are also, often as a result of their ailments, marginalized from the bonds of society. They are cut off from relationships of protection and care, even from friends and family. The possessed Gerasene who lives among the graves, the hemorrhaging woman, the leper: All of these are considered unclean, beneath, beyond the bounds of our empathy or care. And through his healing acts, Jesus literally embraces them. He breaks every societal taboo, walks across every line in the sand, risks every condemnation—indeed, dares others to condemn him—so he can demonstrate that the love of God we are to embody and express knows no limits.
Looking back to that storm in Mark 4, author Rachel Held Evans says in her book Inspired, “When Jesus rebukes the stormy sea, when he commands its fish and walks on its waves, he’s not just showing off; he’s making a statement about the God who reigns over even our most visceral, primal fears, the God who, in the words of the [prophet], ‘makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters’ (Isaiah 43:16).”
Evans goes on to offer, “The miracles of Jesus aren’t magic tricks designed to awe prospective converts…They are instructions, challenges. They show us what to do and how to hope.”
In our world, that’s an especially important distinction to grasp. We need hope, more than we’ve needed it in a long time. These days, it is seductively easy to cast off those who are bothersome or seem dangerous, rather than embrace them. It is easy to lapse into a paralysis of fear when so many storms (figurative and literal) buffet and almost capsize our lives. If Jesus’ miracles are mainly parlor tricks, or else ancient suspensions of the laws of nature that only happened once upon a time, they are no good to us. But if they are instructions for hope and for action, they reveal for us a still path through any storm.
Are miracles magic tricks designed to awe and delight? Are they proofs of Jesus’ divinity designed to convince and convert a skeptical audience? I don’t think so.
How are we to respond when confronted with a person who is beyond the bounds? Embrace her. How are we to act when too many are in need and there seems not enough to go around? Share with generosity of heart. How are we to be when the storm seems intent on sinking us? Remember that beyond any storm is the peace of God in which we find our ground. The catch-22 is that each of these miracles becomes true when we choose to live them. The sick are healed; the hungry are fed; the wave-addled make it through to the calm, when we rise to the challenge of Christ’s miracles.
Dallas Willard says, “We don’t believe in something by merely saying we believe it or even when we believe we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true.” Rachel adds, “So perhaps a better question than ‘Do I believe in miracles’ is ‘Am I acting like I do?’” mark
Do you believe in miracles? I do. And if we live our lives in miraculous hope and action, we may just find that miracles still happen everyday.
God in the Midst of the City 