Jesus, Miracle Worker
In Matthew 8-9 we have a total 9 miracles. First of all, don’t lose sight of the fact
that 9 is equal to 3*3. The reason that
this is important is because these 9 miracles are grouped into three groups of
three miracles apiece. Why is the number
three important? Of course, because it
is God’s number. It is the number of the
Trinity.
But what adds importance to this is that each of these groups of
miracles is separated by a story pertaining to discipleship. Take a look for yourself:
- Miracle Group #1: Leper, Centurion’s servant, Peter’s Mother-in-Law
- Discipleship: Cost of Following Jesus
- Miracle Group #2: Calming of the Storm, Two Demoniacs, Paralytic
- Discipleship: Calling of Matthew/Discussion on Fasting
- Miracle Group #3: Girl Restored to Life, Blind Men, Mute Man
- Discipleship: Harvest is Plentiful but the Workers are Few
So we have three groups of three miracle stories each separated by
a total of three discipleship lessons. Furthermore,
notice that the calling of Matthew is a part of the middle of the discipleship
lessons. You can’t tell me that Matthew didn’t
know what he was doing when he wrote this letter. Add to this that Matthew has intentionally
altered the chronological order of events as presented in the Gospel of Mark so
that this arrangement can happen. You
can’t tell me that Matthew isn’t up to some serious theology here. Let’s find out what is going on.
Miracle Group #1
The first group of miracle stories – the leper, the Centurion, and
Peter’s mother-in-law – has to do with Jesus interacting with those who are not
significant to Jewish culture. In some
manners of speaking, one might call this group the healing of the outcasts –
although I’m not really sure that I would call a woman (Peter’s mother-in-law)
an outcast. Certainly, though, in the Jewish
culture of Jesus’ day a woman was seen as far less significant.
The story of the leper is neat because Jesus actually touches the
leper. Leviticus 22:4-7 indicates that
merely touching a leper was enough to make a person unclean. However, we know that Jesus was never
unclean. So by touching the leper Jesus
is telling us that He has power over ritual cleanliness. We cannot make Jesus unclean by our uncleanliness. Rather, Jesus takes our uncleanliness and
makes us clean.
In the story of the centurion, Jesus demonstrates that he cares for
the needs of Gentiles. The centurion – a
powerful man in the Roman army – was deeply concerned about one of his
servants. Jesus recognizes compassion
when He sees it and responds. But here
we have a twist. The centurion declares
that he believes Jesus to be powerful enough to heal from afar. Perhaps the centurion is sympathetic to Jesus
and how people would see Him if he went into the house of a Gentile. I personally believe that the centurion
genuinely believes in the power of Jesus’ words. Either way, we have an incredible statement
from a Gentile about the authority of Jesus.
In fact, this statement is so powerful that Jesus marvels at his
faith. Jesus only marvels twice in the
Gospels. This story of faith is one
place; the story of the lack of faith of the people in Nazareth is the
other. I think this is a clue to what
Jesus tells the centurion and those around him.
Jesus tells the people that many from the east and west (Gentiles) will
come to the table of Abraham while those who belong (Jews) may be cast out. In other words, what is significant is faith. Genealogy means nothing next to faith.
In the story of Peter’s mother-in-law we see what seems like a
simple healing. What is powerful about
this healing is that the healing of a woman brings in what seems like the whole
town. Here we see a story about how a
simple gesture to a person of lesser cultural status spreads throughout a
community. Blessings from God are not
based upon the worldly status of the person.
First Discipleship Interlude
At this time in Jesus’ ministry, Jesus had not yet undergone
opposition. There was no
persecution. His fame was not yet on the
radar screen of the Jewish leaders.
Therefore, great crowds had begun to follow Him. They wanted many things. Perhaps they wanted to be associated with
someone whose fame was growing. Perhaps
they wanted the thrill of the miracle.
Perhaps they were looking to learn a few tricks so that they could go
off on their own and make a name for themselves. Perhaps even a few of them had begun to
follow in earnest.
Because of the lack of negative pressure from the Jewish leaders,
Jesus needed to give the crowds something more than just the positive
miracles. Jesus teaches the people that
the Son of Man has no place to call home.
Jesus teaches the people that to truly follow Jesus one must place their
priorities on obedience to God rather than what the world says is right. Jesus teaches a hard teaching in order to
balance the incredible experience of the miracle.
As disciple-makers, we need to model this. New disciples are often amazed at the truth
we can speak into the lives of others.
New disciples are often captivated by the fresh perspective of truth and
how it makes them feel. But we need to
be honest up-front. Discipleship is
hard. Discipleship occasionally feels
like wrestling with a bear. It is indeed
very much worthwhile, but that doesn’t make it easy. People need to understand this from the
get-go. The last thing we need to do as
disciple-makers is to have people feel like we’ve pulled the old
bait-and-switch when things start to turn difficult as they process God’s
calling for their life.
Miracle Group #2
In general, we could call this group of miracles the people in
need of peace. I’m only going to process
the first two miracles in this group. I’ll
save the third miracle (paralytic) for tomorrow since it appears in Matthew
9. But in Matthew 8 we have the story of
Jesus calming the water and the healing of the two demoniacs.
In the story of Jesus calming the sea, notice that Jesus directs
His disciples to get into the boat. The
crowds were becoming large, and something needed to be done to be able to get
Jesus away from the crowds. Jesus wasn’t
afraid of the crowds, but as the first discipleship interlude asserted Jesus
also realized that the crowds weren’t in it for the right reason.
The reality is that Jesus directs His disciples into the
boat. He’s the Son of God. He knows full well a storm is coming. He directs His disciples into the path of the
storm. Mental note: Jesus didn’t say it
would be easy. Jesus isn’t afraid of the
storms because He knows He can get us through them. But that also means we will be asked to go
into them.
Jesus did get the disciples through the storm. He commanded the wind and the waves and God’s
glory was on display. Here we arrive at
a great truth. Jesus didn’t do miracles
to get the crowd. In fact, Jesus is
actively avoiding the crowd here. Jesus
did miracles to put the glory of God on display. Miracles are not about us, about giving us
what we need, or about gaining our loyalty.
Miracles are about glorifying God and only about glorifying God.
Finally we come to the story of the demoniacs. In Matthew, we have two demoniacs. However, it is absolutely the same story as
Mark and Luke recite with only one demoniac.
We shouldn’t be bothered by that discrepancy.
Jesus casts the legion of demons into the pigs. The pigs rush into the water and are drowned. The locals demand that Jesus leave. God’s power is on display and the local
townspeople reject it.
However, Mark and Luke tell us that one of the demoniacs wanted to
become Jesus’ disciple. Instead, Jesus
makes him an apostle. The townspeople
may have rejected Jesus’ display of God’s power, but one of the demoniacs saw
God’s power and humbled himself. We’ll
see the result of this in Matthew 15, so I’ll leave us with a bit of a
cliff-hanger until then. For now, we can
note that when God’s power is on display, some people – perhaps even a few
people will take notice.
For me, that’s the really cool part of this story. Jesus brought His disciples through a
horrible storm in order to reach a single demoniac. One person is worth two miracles to
Jesus. God’s economy does not often
match up with worldly economy.
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