Reverend Jonathan Waits
Sermon: Do Miracles Matter? (John 10:22-39)
Date: October 29, 2023
It’s not much of a secret around here that I am a Kansas basketball fan. And, just because I want you to know that I am fully aware of Jesus’ command to love our enemies, I am not going to bring up the 2022 Championship at all…even though it would have worked really well for this illustration. You’re welcome. I want to turn the clock back just a little bit further than that to the 2008 season. That year, KU was playing in the Championship game against a Memphis team everyone knew was going to win. KU had been good all season, but Memphis was just better. And, although the game was close at times, with about 2 minutes left in the game, we were down by 9 and everybody knew it was over. Then we scored, and the gap closed to 7. Then we got a stop. Then we scored again, but so did they. Back and forth it went with our slowly chipping away at their lead. Finally, the clock had ticked all the way down to just seconds remaining in the game. And we had the ball. After a frantic inbounds and scramble to get someone open, freshman guard Sherron Collins (who would go on to have a very successful career at Kansas) got the ball into the hands of junior point guard Mario Chalmers who sunk a three from way beyond the top of the key with 2.1 seconds remaining to tie the game, sending it into an overtime that we won decisively.
Chalmers’ three is still celebrated before every KU home game. It immediately earned itself the moniker, “Mario’s Miracle.” We love miracles. At least, we love the idea of miracles. And there are not a few folks—including many in the church—who will attest to having witnessed or experienced a miracle. What we mean by “miracle” in all of these situations, though, is not the same. If you are well-versed in the culture of the church, when you talk about a miracle with other folks who are similarly enculturated, what you mean is an act of God that goes beyond what is easily explainable in natural terms. We see plenty of these kinds of miracles in the Scriptures, and we’ll come back to them in a little while. When we are talking about something more along the lines of Chalmers’ incredible, game-saving three-pointer, though, we don’t have something supernatural in mind at all. We use the word miracle in those situations as a way to refer simply to a highly unlikely occurrence. Well, given the very much scientifically-minded culture in which we live, unlikely events are something we can fairly easily accept. Supernatural events, on the other hand, are harder. If something can’t be described in natural terms, we tend to doubt it really happened at all. And if there’s a pretty good chance it didn’t happen, it’s hard to believe that it really matters.
This morning, we are in the second part of our new series, Confident in the Face of Tough Questions. Over the course of this six weeks, and in parallel with the Sunday school series many of our adult Sunday school small groups are doing, we are talking about some of the tough questions we are going to encounter as followers of Jesus when we take intentional, clear, and firm stands on the truthfulness of the Christian worldview. The whole point of this series is to equip you to be able to engage well with these kinds of questions in order not simply for you to stand firm in your own faith, but so that you can advance the Gospel with your responses.
Speaking of that, last week, we started this journey by talking about truth. We live in a culture that does not like the concept of truth. At least, it doesn’t like the concept of truth that is true all the time. It would much prefer a world in which we can change which truth we accept as authoritative over our lives kind of like we change cars. The world around us genuinely doesn’t want it to matter which truth we believe. What we learned from a look at a conversation Jesus had with some of the Jewish religious authorities of His day is that it very much matters which truth we believe. Reality is what it is whether we like it or not, and reality is defined by the character of the God who made it. Trying to live lives that are out of sync with reality will result in a loss of freedom. The kind of freedom our culture is trying to find by treating truth as a variable commodity is only found when we live in light of the truth that Jesus is Lord. Everything else flows from there. Or, as we put it then, knowing the truth of Christ is the only way to experience freedom.
Knowing the truth of Christ is one thing, though. Accepting everything that comes along with that can be a bit larger of a pill to swallow. Used to be, Christianity was widely panned as anti-science. That is ironically starting to change a bit as the discoveries of scientists in more and more fields are lining up more and more consistently with the claims of the Christian worldview, but that cloud still hangs over our heads. And in a world that claims to understand how just about everything works, a religious movement that believes in the reality and relevance of “miracles” is treated as quaint on our best days. More often we are viewed as unsophisticated ignoramuses who use “God” as a convenient explanation for things we are too lazy or too dumb to bother figuring out for ourselves.
The result of this is the same question being asked by two different groups of people. The question is whether or not miracles even matter. Does it really matter whether or not Jesus healed people or that the prophet Elijah called down fire from heaven or that Moses struck a rock to make water flow from it or that a giant fish swallowed the prophet Jonah before vomiting him out three days later? The first group of people asking this question are the skeptics and critics of the faith. They may be intrigued by Jesus, but this whole miracle thing we keep insisting on is just a bridge too far for them. Why not just own up to the fact that there are either totally rational (by which they mean scientific) explanations for all of these things or that they didn’t really happen at the very least in the ways the various authors telling us about them in the Scriptures report them to us? Jesus said a lot of really good stuff. We don’t need the miracles for it to still be really good stuff.
The other group asking this same question are believers who have gotten so hung up on being relevant and acceptable to various worldly figures—both for reasons of evangelism and also pride—that they are trying to find ways to conform Christianity to the contours of the modern world. Does it really matter that Jesus had a physical, bodily resurrection from the dead? I mean, doesn’t it serve our cause just as powerfully whether it is a metaphor or an historical event? If we can just take out some of these seemingly unnecessary hurdles, we could probably convince a lot more people to join the church. And isn’t that the goal anyway?
Well, as it just so happens, another conversation Jesus had with the Jewish religious leaders of His day and which was recorded for us by His best friend, John, gives us some pretty important insight here. If you have a copy of the Scriptures with you this morning, find your way to John 10 and let’s take a look at this together.
While John 10 is often treated as a totally separate chapter from the entertaining and spiritually significant encounter Jesus has with a man born blind in John 9, the things Jesus says at the beginning of chapter 10 flow naturally from that context. Like He was doing back in John 8, at the beginning of John 10, surrounded by a group that included both His followers and folks who were not yet convinced about His identity, Jesus once again set before all of them the exclusive nature of His claims. You have perhaps looked at John 10:10 for Jesus’ wonderful self-description as the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, but He also here describes Himself as the gate by which all legitimate access to the Father and His kingdom is gained. It was these kinds of things that left the crowds so divided. As John writes for us in John 10:19: “Again the Jews were divided because of these words. Many of them were saying, ‘He has a demon and he’s crazy. Why do you listen to him?’Others were saying, ‘These aren’t the words of someone who is demon-possessed. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’” And so the debate about Jesus and who He was continued to rage.
It continued to rage through that harvest season and into the winter months when Jesus made another trip to Jerusalem from Galilee, this time for the Festival of Dedication, or, as we know it today, Hanukkah. Now, we’re not sure exactly what Jesus did in Jerusalem for Hanukkah. I suspect He did many of the same things He always did: love people, teach in the temple, worship with the other Jews who were there. But by this point in Jesus’ ministry, His profile was growing. People knew when He was in town, especially the Jewish religious authorities who were more and more bothered by the kinds of things He was doing and saying. They had already tried on more than one occasion and using multiple different approaches to kill Him, but a little like Wiley E. Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner, all of their plans kept falling apart. What made Jesus so especially infuriating for them was that while they definitely want Him dead so He didn’t continue to threaten the foundations of everything they held dear, they were sufficiently intrigued by what He was saying—and in particular where it concerned the Messiah they were all looking forward to seeing—that they wanted to hear more from Him…you know, before they killed Him so He couldn’t say anything else.
On this particular occasion, the Jewish religious authorities tried a little more direct of an approach to getting Jesus to answer their questions than they had tried before. John tells us about this starting in John 10:22: “Then the Festival of Dedication took place in Jerusalem, and it was winter. Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews surrounded him and asked, ‘How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’”
Now, it is an open question whether they were asking this in sincerity or merely as a means to finally be able to nail Him with a charge they could actually make stick. Given the spiritually sensitive tenor of the city during Hanukkah, there’s at least a chance they were asking genuinely. But either way Jesus continued to play coy because He knew their hearts. They didn’t deserve a direct answer to that question because they would have either used it to condemn Him, or else they would elevate Him to a status He didn’t want in order to make a power play against Rome. Both options would have compromised His mission, and He simply wasn’t willing to do that. So, in a very much Jesus-like fashion, He gave them a perfect non-answer answer.
Stay with me in the text at v. 25: “‘I did tell you and you don’t believe,’ Jesus answered them.” In other words, I’ve already answered that question for you. The trouble is that you didn’t believe what I said. You still don’t. Why would I give you another answer that you will be equally unlikely to believe? Instead, if you want an answer to your question, look around.
Let’s keep reading in v. 25: “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify about me. But you don’t believe because you are not of my sheep [remember the conversation about His being the Good Shepherd?]. My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Well, this last part was the same thing Jesus had said the last time He was in Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths, and for which the religious authorities tried to stone Him. This was such a big deal to them because they understood very clearly that Jesus was making a claim to be God here. As far as they were concerned, this represented the absolute peak of blasphemy a person could commit. And in the temple, no less! He clearly deserved to die; a fate they were going to deliver to Him on the spot. Verse 31: “Again the Jews picked up rocks to stone him.”
Jesus, showing a whole lot more presence of mind than I would have shown in His sandals, asks them what on earth they are doing. “Jesus replied, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these works are you stoning me?’’ ‘We aren’t stoning you for a good work,’ the Jews answered, ‘but for blasphemy, because you—being a man—make yourself God.’”
In response, Jesus comes back again to the point He had just made. “Jesus answered them, ‘Isn’t it written in your law, “I said, you are gods”? If he called those whom the word of God came to “gods”—and the Scriptures cannot be broken—do you say, “You are blaspheming” to the one the Father set apart and sent into the world, because I said: I am the Son of God? If I am not doing my Father’s works, don’t believe me. But if I am doing them and you don’t believe me, believe the works. This way you will know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.’ Then they were trying again to seize him, but he eluded their grasp.”
Now, there’s a lot going on here including another one of Jesus’ death-defining escapes from people who were actively trying to kill Him. Don’t tell me the Gospels are boring. But over the course of this adventurous episode, Jesus offers up and then repeats an idea that is absolutely crucial for us to understand if we are going to be able to answer our question. And just to make sure we’re all on the same page here, the question we are wrestling with this morning is the relevance of miracles. Do miracles matter?
Do you know who seems to think they do? Jesus does. And not just because He did a lot of them Himself and is somehow feeling a little put out because we’re doubting Him on the point. None of the people Jesus was debating here had any doubts about the fact that He had worked miracles during His ministry. A lot of them in fact. Way more of them than we could even begin to count. What we have recorded for us in the Gospels are a mere sampling of what He actually did. Healing miracles were one of the biggest features of His ministry. He healed people by the hundreds, maybe even by the thousands. But again, the miracles themselves aren’t why Jesus thought they mattered.
What did Jesus say to the Jewish religious authorities here? They were asking Him about His identity. “Jesus, who are you?” they wanted to know. And just like He did earlier in His ministry and in a totally different context, but one in which He had been presented with the same question, the only answer Jesus gave was to point to the miracles He had done. In other words—and don’t miss this—Jesus’ miracles were the evidence He offered for His identity. Without His miracles we wouldn’t know who He is. Today we often point to the preeminence of the things Jesus said in encouraging people to consider a relationship with Him, but without the things Jesus did (that is, the miracles), the things Jesus said don’t matter. Jesus here was clear: if you think the things I said are crazy, that’s okay. Just look at the things I’ve done—the things my Father has enabled me to do—and draw your conclusions about my identity from those. As He would say somewhere else, “You will know a tree by its fruit.”
This all leaves us with a simple question: what do these miracles tell us about His identity? Well, think about it with me. If God were active and present among us, what kinds of things do you expect He would be doing? There are perhaps a number of answers to that question, but they can all be grouped into a single category we’ll call “God stuff.” If God were here among us, if His kingdom were present in our midst, we would expect God stuff to be happening. Well, when Jesus was among the people, what kinds of things did He do? He did miracles. To put that another way, He did God stuff. Connect the dots here. If God would be doing God stuff if He were among us, and if Jesus did God stuff when He was among us, then Jesus was God among us. That is, Jesus is God. By enabling Jesus to do miracles while He was on earth, God was giving us the proof of His identity. Miracles are how God proves who Jesus really is.
Jesus claimed to be God. There’s simply no way to avoid that conclusion. The crowd listening to Him certainly understood as much. They told Him so in v. 33 in response to His asking them why they were going to try to stone Him to death. “‘We aren’t stoning you for a good work,’ the Jews answered, ‘but for blasphemy, because you—being a man—make yourself God.’” They didn’t for a second believe Jesus was God, but were absolutely clear on the fact that He was claiming as much for Himself. Without His miracles, Jesus was a liar. About everything. And that’s not just my saying that. I’m saying that because Jesus said it Himself. Look back again at the text with me in v. 37: “If I am not doing my Father’s works [that is, God stuff or miracles], don’t believe me.” That’s Jesus talking. He is the one who said that without His miracles as evidence to back up the things He was saying, no one listening should have believed Him. If He held that out as a source of evidence for His identity, we can’t really do any less than that. Miracles absolutely matter and it is right and proper to insist on that point. Miracles are how God proves who Jesus really is.
If Jesus didn’t do the God stuff He did, then we don’t have any reason to believe He was God. And if Jesus wasn’t God, then we are still stuck in our sins because He couldn’t save us. This is really significant stuff we are talking about here. The person expressing the view that Jesus’ miracles don’t really matter very much in the overall picture of the Christian faith simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He completely misunderstands the nature of Jesus and His mission. Miracles are how God proves who Jesus really is.
But if it feels like a bit of a tall order to try to defend all the miracles in the Scriptures to someone who is skeptical of the whole thing, let me make it a bit easier for all of us. We really only have to defend one miracle. Just one. And which one is that? The resurrection. Why? Because that was the most important miracle. Listen: if God were really among us, doing God stuff, what do you think would be the most significant bit of God stuff He could do? I defy you to make a case for anything other than His defeating death. Death has always been the great enemy of humanity. God’s removing death as an enemy would unquestionably be the most powerful thing He could do for us. Well, in the resurrection, that is exactly what He did. When Jesus died on the cross, He only stayed dead for three days. Then He came walking back out of that tomb, fully alive, and clothed in immortality as Paul would later describe Him. Death was defeated. Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t still die in this life. We very obviously do. It means that we now had the assurance that death wasn’t the end. And if it wasn’t the end, then all of its power over us was broken. Because defeating death would be the most powerful God thing He would do if He were here, and because Jesus defeated death by being raised from the dead, we can have absolute assurance that, in Jesus, God really was here. God really is here. Miracles are how God proves who Jesus really is.
Okay, but how does that help us defend all the rest of the miracles that help to prove Jesus’ divine identity in the Gospels and Acts, let alone all the miracles we read about in the Old Testament? Because if the resurrection really happened—and there is an overwhelmingly strong case to be made that it did—then everything Jesus said about God is true. It means that we live in a world presided over by a supernatural God who has the power to bring life from the dead. If our God really is a supernatural God, then reading stories about His doing supernatural things shouldn’t confuse or embarrass us. We don’t have to run away from them or make excuses for them or try to explain them away or anything else like that. They’re all merely examples of God’s being God. Think about it: As compared with overcoming the power of death, what is healing a sick person or miraculously multiplying a young boy’s lunch…twice or exercising power over the natural world or doing any of the other miraculous things we see throughout the Scriptures? If you can raise the dead, doing any of those other things isn’t even hard. A God who can raise the dead can do whatever else He wants. Miracles are how God proves who Jesus really is.
So, when someone comes to you skeptical about the miracle claims in the Scriptures, just point them to the resurrection and let it do the talking. And if you don’t feel up to the task of defending it, number one, start doing your homework now so that you can, but number two, just take Jesus’ approach. If the other person can prove the resurrection didn’t happen, she is free to reject Jesus and Christianity. If she really does examine the evidence, though, the case is clear. Miracles are how God proves who Jesus really is. And if He really is who He says He is, we need to give Him our lives. Let’s make sure we do that.