~by Pastor Mike Middaugh

This post is the last in a series on the miracles of Jesus. Each week I will look at one miracle performed by Jesus to explore its meaning and significance. I’ll be using several resources to help me out, including an excellent new book by Pastor Jared C. Wilson titled “The Wonder Working God,” published by Crossway.

On December 6th, 2014 NASA reported that the New Horizons space craft had come out of hibernation. After a voyage of nearly nine years and over 3 billion miles – the farthest any space mission had traveled to reach its primary target – the space craft was awake and ready for its 2015 encounter with the Pluto system. Its primary mission will be to explore Pluto and its many moons, the very frontier of our solar system.

The fact that we, as a human civilization, are capable of building and programming an instrument able to travel billions of miles over many years to reach Pluto is astonishing. The realization that our solar system which we are only now able to study the furthest reaches of, is just one of billions of solar systems in the Milky Way Galaxy is even more astounding. But the promise of Christmas that the God who created and orders all of this vast distance would send his own Son, his very essence, to be born into our world as a savior is nearly beyond belief.

Sally Lloyd Jones in “The Jesus Storybook Bible” says it like this:

The God who flung planets into space and kept them whirling around and around, the God who made the universe with just a word, the one who could do anything at all – was making himself small. And coming down … as a baby.

But why would God send a baby to rescue the world?

This is the mystery and wonder of the Christmas story. And its not just a story, but a reality. God chose a young couple, a humble carpenter and his virgin betrothed, to travel to a small town. Because of their low standing, and the high occupancy of Bethlehem, they were forced to reside in a stable and that is where the baby that would change the world was born.

Mary and Joseph named him Jesus, “Emmanuel” – which means “God has come to live with us.”

Because, of course, he had.

The mathematics of the incarnation are inscrutable. We aren’t supposed to wrap our finite minds around how the infinite God could also be a manifested, localized, killable man. It is surely a miracle. As such, it is meant to send us not into logic but into worship.

The incarnation, God’s “coming into flesh” is a miracle beyond compare. For if this miracle had never happened, none of the others we have studied would have either. Surely this child is the greatest gift. Surely this is the Son of God come to take away the sins of the world.

~by Pastor Mike Middaugh

This post is part of a series on the miracles of Jesus. Each week I will look at one miracle performed by Jesus to explore its meaning and significance. I’ll be using several resources to help me out, including an excellent new book by Pastor Jared C. Wilson titled “The Wonder Working God,” published by Crossway.

One of the most often overlooked and undervalued miracles of Jesus takes place just before his royal entry into Jerusalem. Maybe it is because the immediate value of the miracle is not easily defined. No one is fed, no healing takes place, and nobody’s sins are forgiven. But the Transfiguration event is nonetheless a miracle worth pausing to consider.

Jesus’ Transfiguration takes place at the top of a mountain with a small group of followers, and at first glance it seems like a strange event without a clear theological purpose. Perhaps it was one more step in preparing the disciples for what was about to come, or maybe it is more for our sake than theirs, so that we might see the fullness of his glory even before its revelation on Easter morning. Either way, this event is an incredible moment in time when Jesus throws open wide the window into heaven so that his followers might look in.

Up to this point in Jesus’ life his humanity has obscured his divinity, his humility overshadowing his exaltation. But in a moment the reverse takes place. Jesus’ humanity is eclipsed by a glimpse at his radiant glory.

This event brings to mind several major Old Testament events. Moses, after the command to leave Sinai, requests to see the glory of God (Ex. 33:18-23). Years later Isaiah experiences the glory of God in the temple (Isa. 6:1-7). Fire descends from heaven upon the prayers of Elijah (2 Kings 1). And back to Moses who met with God as a burning flame overtaking a bush, but not consuming it (Ex. 3).

Each of these Old Testament events show that seeing God can be a frightening and awe inspiring experience. Imperfect people try to hide themselves from the full glory of a perfect God. The result of the fall is that God usually remains hidden. So as not to harm his people, the fullness of his majesty and power are usually enshrouded and obscured.

But in this moment at the top of the mountain Jesus lets it all hang out.

As a further acknowledgment of Jesus’ authority Moses and Elijah appear alongside him. After a brief conversation these two representatives of “the Law and the Prophets” disappear from view with Jesus left alone (Mark 9). Just as everything in the Old Testament was written to point to Jesus, the transfigured Jesus shows that he is now the summation of all those expectations. He is perfect enough, brilliant enough, righteous enough, and majestic enough to fulfill every Old Testament promise. Simply put, Jesus is enough.

Without boasting or bragging, without pomp or circumstance, Jesus uncovers the truth of who he is. As Jared C. Wilson writes:

He surpasses all the Old Testament “heroes”; he subsumes them in his brilliance, as he is infinitely greater than they. He is the Passover lamb, the manna in the wilderness, the brazen serpent of Moses held aloft to heal all who behold him.

He is the great high priest, surpassing all priests.
He is the good shepherd, surpassing all shepherds.
He is the great judge, surpassing all judges.
He is the King of kings, surpassing all kings.
He is the Lord of lords, surpassing all earthly masters.
He is the bridegroom, surpassing all husbands.
He is the Rabbi Christ, surpassing all preachers.
He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end, surpassing all the best of everyone, the best there’s ever been.

It is important to note in the Transfiguration event that Jesus is not reflecting God the Father’s glory. He is not shining as the moon shines when opposite the sun. Rather, Jesus’ glory is from himself. He is the perfect savior, the fulfillment of the law, the answer to the prophets, and his radiance is his own.

We can be glad for this Transfiguration miracle because it stands above the rest. Providing food, healing the sick, or chasing out of demons all alleviate the symptoms, but the Transfiguration teaches us that Jesus is also capable of becoming the ultimate cure.

~by Pastor Mike Middaugh

This post is part of a series on the miracles of Jesus. Each week I will look at one miracle performed by Jesus to explore its meaning and significance. I’ll be using several resources to help me out, including an excellent new book by Pastor Jared C. Wilson titled “The Wonder Working God,” published by Crossway. 

Some of you might be able to “read” a defense. I’ll admit I cannot. While I love to watch football, root for my teams, and have a good grasp of the rules, when it comes to understanding play-calling and formations I have limited knowledge. I am aware that occasionally “nickels” and “dimes” get involved in defensive packages, and I can certainly see all the players on the field, but I am unable to truly see them in a way I know some others can.

However, one of the greatest practitioners in the sport today is New England Patriot Tom Brady. I am not saying he is my favorite quarterback, or that I root for him often (quite the opposite usually), but I do have great respect for his ability and understanding of the game. He has what they call “a football brain.” He can get up to the line and within a matter of seconds understand exactly what the defense is likely to do and where their weaknesses lie. Of course his skill is not purely mental, he can also put the ball when and where it needs to be to move the chains down-field.

When it comes to reading a defense and an intuitive understanding of the game, Brady can seefar more clearly than almost anybody else. And yet, there is another realm where he admits he is nearly blind.

Several years ago Tom Brady was interviewed by CBS’s Steve Kroft for 60 Minutes. In the course of the conversation Brady said “I have three Super Bowl rings and still I think there’s something greater out there for me.”

Kroft asked him, “What’s the answer?”

Brady responded: “I wish I knew. I wish I knew. I love playing football and I love being quarterback for this team. But at the same time, I think there are a lot of other parts about me that I’m trying to find.”

In this interview Tom Brady is very honest and open. He acknowledges that while he has accomplished what most people only dream of, he still feels something more is out there. Something is still missing. Many people are so entangled in their lifelong pursuits of accomplishments or comfort that they never get to the point of asking this question, and yet, this great quarterback, at the pinnacle of his career, is self-aware enough to admit he can’t quite see or grasp the eternal longings of his heart.

When it comes to spiritual longing it seems like there is seeing and then there is really seeing.

There is vision that comes with intellect, with nature and with the physical realm. But then there is another type of seeing, a vision gathered with the spiritual sense, a part of us that is dead until raised by Christ himself. Emptiness cannot fill emptiness and the blind cannot heal themselves.

This is the truth revealed by Jesus when he heals a blind men in Bethsaida.

Some people brought to [Jesus] a blind man and begged him to touch him….and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?'” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. (Mark 8:22-25)

Why did Jesus not heal him completely the first time? Why was a second laying on of his hands necessary? Certainly it wasn’t for lack of power.

This two-part healing miracle illustrates the spiritual reality that sometimes we can see but not see.  As Isaiah proclaimed to God’s people years before: “You hear and don’t understand, you see and yet do not perceive” (Isaiah 6:9) It is quite possible to know something without ever taking it to heart. So it is with Jesus, there are are those who know many things about him and yet have chosen not to follow. There may even be some who try to follow without really knowing him at all, but to see clearly we have to allow him to give us sight.

As the man left Jesus that day, he was commanded “not to enter the village” – an extension of Jesus’ common refrain to tell no one about his work.

Jesus refused to be known as some magician or anyone’s trained miracle monkey, he came for a greater purpose. This command to the man healed with blindness also sets up a wonderful transition to the next, even more well-known passage which is Peter’s confession. It begins with Jesus asking his disciples “who do you say that I am am?”

Can you see me?

Do you know me?

Who do you say that I am?

I can hear the choir singing Pam Mark Hall’s refrain: You are the Lord. You are the Christ. You are the Holy Messiah…

~by Pastor Mike Middaugh

This post is part of a series on the miracles of Jesus. Each week I will look at one miracle performed by Jesus to explore its meaning and significance. I’ll be using several resources to help me out, including an excellent new book by Pastor Jared C. Wilson titled “The Wonder Working God,” published by Crossway.

One of the scariest experiences of my life was finding myself in the middle of a high-mountain lake in Glacier National Park as a storm blew in over the mountains. I was 14 years old and in a boat with my little brother. My other brother, the youngest, was in a flat-bottomed boat with mom and dad, but Christopher and I were in a canoe. I have never seen a storm come in so fast, even to this day. One moment we were floating and fishing in the sun, the next the sky was darkening, waves were rising, and the wind was whipping across the lake. We thought we would be overtaken.

It is in moments like that when we find ourselves crying out to God for help.

On calmer days we are quite good at convincing ourselves that we are in charge – that the decisions we make and the actions we take will control the outcomes of our lives. But then, on darker days, there are events and circumstances that so consume and overpower us that we realize we have completely lost control.

Having spent some time of the water I know the power of a storm and the chaos that ensues. Nothing has the ability to remind us of our own mortality and insufficiency quite like the forces of nature. It is understandable then, when considered this way, how Jesus’ disciples responded as a storm overtook their own boat upon the sea. Experienced fishermen and sailors they were, but this was no small storm. “The waves were breaking into the boat, so that it was already filling.” You may recognize this week’s miracle, which is commonly titled Jesus Calms the Storm and found in Mark 4:35-41.

As the waves pounded, the disciples cried out “Rabbi, do you not care that we are perishing?” Their statement suggests the end is near, that they have no hope of regaining control. Since nothing else has worked that day, they wake their Lord and demand to know, “where are you, why are you sleeping, don’t you care about our lives?”

To their shouts Jesus arises, he speaks quickly and calms the sea. The wind, the waves, the clouds and the even the boat respond to his words. “Peace! Be Still!” And why should this be surprising, for Jesus created these in the first place.

There are many meaningful things we can draw from this story:

Jesus is Lord of the wind and the waves, all of creation answers to him.

Jesus is always in control, even when he is asleep, even when he is surrounded by murmuring critics, even when he is later arrested, the gospels show us that Jesus is never not in control.

And a more subtle, often overlooked aspect of the story shows the paradox of this man. He is God and controls all creation, and yet where is he when the storm comes up, but sleeping in the stern. Full of power and authority he still needed sleep. He humbled, giving up some of his divinity, in order to to become a man.

Yet the greatest truth of this miracle story, I believe, is found at the very end. Two times in this story do the disciples experience “great fear.” The first, of course, is at the hand of the wind, but the second is far more revealing. Even after the storm is calmed they look at their Lord and are struck by a revelation – since he could calm the storm that must also mean he allowed it. The storm that nearly killed them was permitted by their God.

This part of the story reveals a much more complex aspect of our faith. Jesus invites his disciples into a genuine, self-forgetful, self-abandoning type of faith. A faith that says, “I may not understand you and yet trust in you I will.” Or, as in the words of Job “though He slay me, I will hope in Him.”

This new aspect of their Lord, caught them off guard, and I expect they hadn’t realized what they signed up for. Their fear is the result of an internal wrestling match – in their minds they want a God they can control, who will solve their every worldly problem, but in their hearts they are realizing the God they need, and the God standing in front of them will not be summoned or ordered around, but that is in fact even better, because that means he is truly GOD. And as they find out through being with him, he is also good.

Thinking back now to my own encounter with wind, waves, and deep water, that day on the high-mountain lake turned out OK for everyone in my family. There was some intense paddling, and even a failed rescue attempt by a large boat with a motor, but we managed to stay afloat and eventually the wind pushed us to the shore. My prayers were answered just the way I wanted on that day.

However, I also know there will be other days when I won’t understand the outcomes. There will be times when it may seem to me like God is distant, and I may not understand why he allows certain storm clouds to billow into my life. But through it all, this story about Jesus from Mark chapter 4 reminds us that even when it seems like we are perishing and all is lost, our God is not asleep in the heavens. He has not checked out for the day. In fact, he is in the boat. He was always there right there, and in control the entire time.

~by Pastor Mike Middaugh

This post is the first of a series on the miracles of Jesus. Each week I will look at one miracle performed by Jesus to explore its meaning and significance. I’ll be using several resources to help me out, including an excellent new book by Pastor Jared C. Wilson titled “The Wonder Working God,” published by Crossway.

The Bible begins and ends with a wedding (Genesis 2:22-24; Rev. 19:6-9), so it is no wonder that Jesus chose a wedding to mark the beginning of his public ministry and as the occasion for his first miracle. We do not know much about the circumstances surrounding this event, only that “there was a wedding at Cana” and that “Jesus was invited along with his disciples” (John 2:2) You may remember the crisis event of this story is that the host has run out of wine. Jesus’ mother asks his help, but he responds sharply “woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.(2:4)”

Nonetheless, Jesus intervenes. He has the servants fill the jars with water, draw some, and take it to the master of the feast, who handled the wedding’s affairs. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine he exclaimed to the bridegroom everyone serves the good wine first… but you have keep the good wine until now(2:10).”

John follows up this narrative with an explanation. He writes that Jesus did this, the first of his signs, at Cana in Galilee, to “manifested his glory.” That upon seeing this take place “the disciples believed in him” (2:11). So, we immediately learn something about Jesus’ miracles. They manifest his glory, expressing the very nature of his being.

Not only do Jesus miracles teach us about him and who he really is, but they also teach us something about the world. We tend to think of miracles as supernatural expressions that break our normal laws of nature. In fact, it may be far more helpful to think of them as singular moments when our broken nature is actually returned to normal. Jared Wilson writes “what are miracles then, but glimpses of the way the world is meant to be, glimpses of the way the world is actually becoming.” And that Jesus Christ comes “bending, it seems, the very laws of nature. In fact, he is straightening them out.”

So what about the water into wine? How does this miracle reveal Jesus’ glory? What does it teach us about our world?

We could say that Jesus enjoys making people happy by giving them the “good stuff,” or that he didn’t want the host to be embarrassed for running out of wine. While these both may be  pleasant byproducts of the event itself, they do not begin to scratch the surface of the divine truth teeming just below.

The real meaning I believe is found by studying Jesus’ words spoken to his mother. His response is nearly a rebuke as he says “woman, what does this have to do with me. My hour is not yet come.” The phrase “my hour” or “my time” is only ever used by Jesus to refer to one of two things. He is either thinking of the cross and what he will bear upon it, or of the full revelation of his glory on some future day. In this case I think it is both.

As Jesus surveys the wedding celebration, the feast they are consuming, the wine they are imbibing, and the marriage union they are enjoying, he is reminded of a future banquet that has been promised. He is anxiously anticipating sharing with his people the marriage supper, when on the last day believers from all time and all places will feast in the presence of their victorious Lord.

But in order for that great hope to be achieved, something is required of Jesus. He must provide the wine of sacrifice for the salvation of his people. In actuality it will be his blood shed on the cross that allows the party to commence in the heavenly realm.

To put this into simple language: When Mary, the mother of Jesus asks him to help with the wine at the wedding, she seems to interrupt his train of thought. She sees an earthly problem, wine that has run out. Yet for him, this celebration and her need, are a palpable reminder of what he must go through for his people. For this party at Cana to continue Jesus turns water into wine, a small expression of his power. Yet, in order for the ultimate wedding feast to take place, the heavenly banquet he has in mind for his people, a far greater sacrifice is needed. Jesus will become both the bridegroom and the feast, the Divine Provider on both ends. He will sacrifice himself in order that his people might partake of his body and his blood, receiving him as the source of their very life.

In the wedding feast at Cana, Jesus is not performing a neat trick. He isn’t just providing for a need. His glory is shining through as this signals the immediate presence of the ancient promise, that he will intervene to provide for what we are lacking most, an inability to save ourselves and overcome our sin. He will provide the sacrifice that will allow the party to commence, and the new wine that will flow forever. Not just the good stuff, but the best stuff.