Chapter 13 

Did Someone Ask for a Miracle? 

 

In society, the word “miracle” is often used to describe an unexpected outcome. A football team scores the winning touchdown with only seconds left on the clock. Someone pauses for a moment at a traffic light and narrowly avoids a car speeding through a red light. “It was a miracle,” they say, “that I wasn’t seriously injured.” Even in everyday situations, the word is used: “I’ve been thinking about you. Wow, what a miracle you called.”  

 

For Jesus, a miracle was a powerful action by God, breaking the laws of nature. It’s God stepping into our lives to accomplish the unexplainable. Jesus was known as the miracle worker, breaking the laws of nature for the benefit of those He met. During His life, it was a demonstration that He was the Messiah. 

 

Not everyone, though, was willing to accept Him in that role. Religious leaders likely dismissed Him as another false Messiah—one of many who had appeared for a time and then faded away; Nicodemus, a Pharisee, wondered whether Jesus might be a great prophet; the people of Sychar saw in Him hope for the future; the typical Israelite was left confused, unsure what to make of a teacher who did not fit the expected pattern of the coming Messiah. 

 

As Jesus’s time in Sychar finished, He and his disciples traveled toward Jesus’s hometown of Nazareth. Nazareth, with just hundreds of residents, was situated in a valley surrounded by large rocky hills. It was a rural community that relied on home-grown crops and their olive groves for supplying their needs. Nazareth was just another village where residents peacefully lived out their existence. 

 

The walk to Nazareth was interrupted when they approached Cana. Fond memories of the wedding there and Jesus’s first miracle of turning water into wine filled the disciples' spirits. Then coming closer was an important official from Capernaum. He had “Heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son for he was at the point of death. (John4:47). The official came humbly before Jesus recognizing the need for a miracle.  

 

The official begged Jesus to follow and heal his son. Jesus, instead, told him, “Go your way; your son lives.” (John 4:50). What was there that caused the official to believe? Was it the words Jesus spoke? Was it a look of compassion in Jesus’s eyes? Was it a touch that caused him to believe? Regardless, he believed and started toward home.  

 

The nobleman’s faith was rewarded when his servants met him on the walk back and told him, “Your son lives! Then he inquired about the hour when he got better. And they said to him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. The father knew that it was at that same hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives.’” (John 4:51-53). 

  

What started as desperation, became hope, then belief, and finally evolved into faith. The official received much more than he sought. The Holy Spirit could now take faith in Christ and develop a life devoted to God. How many more people could be touched by the official’s testimony? 

 

After this short interruption, Jesus continued to Nazareth. He reconnected with friends, hung out with family, and enjoyed relaxing. Because of the stories of His miraculous healings that had already reached His neighbors, questions abounded in the community.  Even more interestingly, He was selected as the guest speaker for the Sabbath service. 

 

The Sabbath service never deviated from a prescribed schedule. Five men from the congregation and a guest speaker were chosen. The service began with a series of prayers and blessings and then readings from the laws found in the Pentateuch. The guest speaker read a passage from the prophets and gave the sermon. The service ended with a reference to the great longing for Messiah’s appearance. (Edersheim). 

 

The readings for the service were not handpicked by the synagogue leader but followed a long-established cyclical pattern. Divided into 175 sections, the readings took 3 ½ years to be completed. For hundreds of years, there was no deviation from this pattern. Only once every 3 ½ years was today’s passage read.  

 

Today, Jesus needed no sermon; the scripture was the message. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has appointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18-19)  

 

The scripture was a reminder of the Israelites longing for the Messiah’s appearance. Some of the older members may have scoffed, thinking, “He will never come in my lifetime.” For others, the Messiah’s coming was a dream still waiting to be fulfilled. Still others may have been wondering when service would end. Then came the shocking declaration: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). 

 

Those in attendance were both amazed and puzzled by His statement. Everyone understood that this scripture would only be “fulfilled” by the coming of the Messiah. Was there a possibility He was the Chosen of God? It couldn’t be. They had grown up with Him; they knew His family, and Him as an adult. He had even lived and worked among them for thirty years. How could this be true? Him, the Messiah? Impossible. 

 

Outrage filled the synagogue. They could accept Him as a teacher, even a great one but as the Messiah, absolutely not. The disbelief that Jesus was the Son of God was so strong, they could only do what the law required. He had just committed blasphemy. By Sanhedrin rule, those accused of blasphemy suffered instant death. That must happen! 

 

The multitude “Rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.” (Luke 4:29). An acceptable method of punishment was to push the accused to the edge of a cliff and then stone that person till he fell down the cliff and died. Blame was not borne by those that did the stoning. The fall was the cause of death. 

 

Another man would have suffered an agonizing death, but God’s unseen messengers intervened. “Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.” (Luke 4:30).  

 

For Jesus, the direct intervention of God into people’s lives through miracles, was a reminder of His connection to the Heavenly Father. Nazareth might not recognize Him as the Messiah, but for others, such as the official from Capernaum, He was their miracle worker. When accepted as that, the greatest miracle of all, a changed heart occurred. Jesus was (and is) always ready to accomplish that miracle.