Signs and Wonders.

Signs and Wonders.

      'Signs reveal Jesus as God at work amongst us, but they also reveal how unready so many of us are to accept and embrace what is revealed and how contentious we can become when the God in heaven that we worship turns out to be involved in the details of our lives on this earth in ways that don't fit our misconceptions'.

                                         Eugene Peterson

        One of the popular paradigms for reading John's Gospel, is to look at the seven signs recorded by John that Jesus did, all of which reveal God at work in His creation. The signs are done in order to promote belief and faith in Jesus, as the 'Way, Truth and the Life'.
         In his book,'Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places', Peterson comments that 'Signs and wonders are.....'an essential part of the biblical story and it's continuation and out working in the Christian life; but out of context, apart from God's revelation of himself in Jesus, severed and then removed from their organic positionings in the intricate and detailed formation of God's people,they are simply things, miracle commodities that are bought and sold on the religious stock exchange'.
       The seven signs in John's Gospel are as follows:

1. Turning water into wine in Cana- John 2 v 1-11.

2. Healing of an official's son in Capernaum- John 4 v 46-54.

3. Healing of the paraplegic in Jerusalem- John 5 v 1-18.

4. Feeding of the 5000 in Galilee- John 6 v 1-15.

5. Stilling of the storm on the Lake of Galilee- John 6 16-21.

6. Healing of the man born blind in Jerusalem- John 9 v 1-41.

7. Raising of Lazarus from the dead at Bethany- John 11 v 1-54.

            There are a number of interesting issues raised, and I will touch on three:

1. Jesus is centre stage in all seven, and the signs are like a divine sword that seperates those who believe and those who reject the purposes of God for their lives. In the sign of the feeding of the 5000, many later choose to no longer follow Jesus. With the man born blind, the man is thrown out the synagogue, and disowned by his parents. After the raising of Lazarus, the plots to kill Jesus intensify. Despite seeing the official's son healed in Capernaum, Matthew would comment in his gospel, ' And you Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you'. Matt 11 v 23-24. Signs and wonders expose where our hearts are in relation to the author of those signs. Jesus is a sign spoken against,Luke 2 v 34-35, and to some he is the aroma of life, but to others the aroma of death. The man born blind not only received his sight, but came into a spiritual understanding of who Jesus is. That could not be said of his parents, who seem to be more concerned with appeasing the synagogue rulers, than they do delighting in their son' s healing and salvation.

2. It is interesting to note who and how Jesus approached in these signs. We are not given the names of the paraplegic, the royal official in Capernaum, or the man born blind. We are given Lazarus' name, and a reference to Andrew, and Peter in the feeding miracle. The Lord is concerned for the named and the unnamed, the known, and the unknown. The royal official would have had influence, the blind man and paraplegic no influence. The royal official may also have been a gentile, we are not told. Each is approached individually. All in their own way were bruised reeds . Lazarus a dead reed.Jesus had time and room for them all, but each of these signs is full of depth and meaning, that goes much further than the immediate manifestation of power. The loaves and fishes' sign is full of Old Testament imagery of Jesus being the ultimate fulfillment of the manna from heaven, the bread that came down as the bread of life. Lazarus' resurrection is a powerful sign pointing back to Ezeikel's vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, and of how God's Spirit can breathe life into dead bones. The paraplegic's thirty eight years as a cripple, carries allusions of the time that Israel spent wondering as a cripple in the wilderness. For those who had ears to hear, and eyes to see, it would have been very clear that Jesus was saying a lot more through each of these signs than simply the sign itself. They were signposts pointing to himself as the 'Way, the Truth, and the Life'. We need a reality of God's manifest power today to have that same effect. The signs point to the deeper and ultimately far greater questions of 'What are you going to do with Jesus? Who is he? Do you know him?'

3. It is interesting to see where these signs took place. A wedding, a home, a lakeside, on a lake, on a roadside, by a place of pilgrimage, and outside a tomb. Jesus brought the Kingdom of God into all areas of life. Not one of these signs were performed within the framework of synagogue meetings. The Lord is the Lord of all creation, and not just of our gathered meetings. One of the allusions in the seven signs of John's Gospel is to the seven days of creation recorded in Genesis. John has already introduced his gospel with clear echoes of Genesis 1 in the introduction. 'In the beginning was the Word....' and so on. These seven signs are creative miracles that remind us that God is still at work through His Son in His creation. Those in blindness can know the touch of Jesus, the light of the world, and can see again. The God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills has unlimited resources to get what He wants done in and through our lives. Death is swallowed up in life, and stale life can be transformed into the new life and wine of God's Kingdom. We could go on and on! We want to see more powerful acts of God in meetings and in life. Come Lord Jesus, and demonstrate through us your people who you really are into this world in which we are called to be your salt and light! Turn water into wine, transform dead crippled religious systems into life giving springs and rivers. Demonstrate you are no man's debtor, and that in you is more provision than we need. Powerfully demonstrate your victory over the sting of death, and breathe life into dead tombs. Hallelujah!