And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath,
32 and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority.33
And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice,
34 “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.”
35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm.
36 And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!”
37 And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.38
And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf.
39 And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them. 40
Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them.
41 And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.
As we make our way through Luke’s Gospel we are going to see demons fall, lame people made whole, blind people see and even dead people raised. Before moving on it
seemed a good idea to look at miracles in general.. What is the point of Jesus doing miracles? Well, a few things.
First, the miracles of Christ demonstrate who He is as the Son of God and the authority that He has been given by the Father. They authenticate His person and His
mission. Jesus’ miracles have no explanation other than the supernatural. Even the enemies of Jesus did not deny this, they never once denied that what he did was supernatural. They did try to attribute it to the Devil and to dark powers of evil, but that
was only a desperate attempt by desperate men. But never a denial that what He did was beyond nature. Without the miraculous you have no Jesus, you have no Savior, you have no salvation, Christianity and the miraculous simply cannot be separated.
If you admit that Jesus is the Son of God as even the demons do, then miracles, far from being hard to believe, are actually inevitable. Admit the incarnation, without
which there is no Savior and no hope for anyone, admit the incarnation and miracles are part and parcel of what did and must have happened if God became a man.
Second, the miracles of Christ are a revelation of the victory that is ours in the consummation, that is, the miracles are pointing to the end, are building to the
greatest miracle of the resurrection. This is what the people in Jesus’ day missed. Miracles are eschatological in focus; they are those supernatural acts of God that preach and point to the eternal victory of Jesus and those who trust him. In the Bible a
miracle is related to the events by which this world shall give way to the Kingdom of heaven, by which the world comes to consummation and the kingdom of God, commenced.
In Luke 11 the enemies of Jesus are asking for a miracle, asking for Jesus to do something that will prove to them, who He is, that He is really the Messiah and the
One in whom the fullness of God is, and has come to the world. He had already done all kinds of things, they had seen many miracles at the hands of Jesus, all of which were answering the very question they were asking.
They are taunting Jesus at this point: “If you are the Messiah, if you are really the one who brings the kingdom of God as we know the Messiah will do, then give
us a miracle of apocalyptic significance to prove that you are indeed the One.”
They wanted a miracle indicative of the kingdom of God, one that shows that the kingdom has come, that it is here. Jesus told them that the only sign they were going
to get was the sign of Jonah. “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Jesus says that His resurrection is the consummate miracle, the
consummate sign that He is who He says, and that the kingdom has come even as He said in Luke 4 when he read from Isaiah 61 and told them, this scripture is now fulfilled in your hearing.
The miracles of our Savior preach to us the significance of what He is doing in the earth, AND are both pointers to the reality which they represent AND pointers to
the realm from which they came. The miraculous was not done simply to do nice things for people or to get attention. He was not being a divine magician nor putting on a show so that he could pack folks in. In fact, his miracles were not with demonstrative,
emotional acts on the part of Jesus. He merely would touch and or speak and disease, death, and even the created order would obey Him. The miracles authenticated, they proved Jesus is the Messiah and that the kingdom had come, that the end is here.
However, there is more, much more. Jesus comes to demonstrate the authority that is his, a power over the physical world AND the spiritual world that is His and His
alone. And we must remember to never disconnect the two, the physical and the spiritual, for Jesus does not. The physical is merely the picture or the demonstration of the other.
The miracles are vehicles of revelation and of salvation itself. John Calvin called them “sacramental signs”. That is, they reveal in visible form the invisible grace
of God. John Stott calls them “enacted parables” to teach us of grace and salvation. C.S. Lewis beautifully says, “The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some
of us to see.”
In each miracle something bigger than the miracle itself is the point, something redemptive, something that points us to the consummation and the fullness of redemption.
What does it mean that Jesus spoke to creation and it obeyed Him? What was the point? Simply, that creation serves the redemptive program of God and that redemptive program is Jesus! Or when Jesus casts out demons? There, He is showing us that the power
of hell cannot withstand Him, cannot thwart what He is doing, for us and for our eternal joy and satisfaction. His healing diseases point us to the realization that by His stripes we are healed, not just from fever and disease, but from what disease and sin
own as their champion, death itself.
Here is what you should do. Put yourself in that synagogue the day that Jesus was speaking in Capernaum. Watch as the demon possessed man comes in and you no doubt
wonder, how did HE get in here? This is NOT a place for people so disgusting and bound over to wickedness!
Hear the voice of the Savior speak to him and watch the demon come out with great fear at the authority of the Savior, confess who He is…confess what Jesus will in
fact do with him by destroying him. Then see this man, now set free, listening to the sermon of Jesus…with eyes and ears wide open, with tears of joy streaming down his cheeks, because God has loved this unlovely man. Do you not see yourself in him?
You then follow Jesus to Peter’s house and you see this woman lying down, sick with fever, no doctors giving her aid, no physicians helping her, but in the common
thought of the day, it is only a woman after all. Matthew adds that Jesus touched her and she is immediately the healthiest person in the room and so much so, that she is up, and with joy serving, waiting on Jesus, and honoring her Lord. Is this not the demonstration
of your own heart to the Savior?
And then you watch what appears to be an endless line of sick people, diseased people, possessed people, one after another, in bondage, staring death in the face,
the hopeless, not the ones who get invited to the parties, not the ones whom others admire but rather who are forgotten who are cast out, after all, what can be done for them? But Jesus looks for them, and is not wearied by their coming. He touches them,
one by one, he loves these unlovely people, and He acts on their behalf to do for them what man had given up could be done.
See all of this. Behold all the miracles that our Savior performed, and see the kind of people for whom they were performed. Be assured that this same Jesus, this
same power, this same love, this same compassion, this same interest of God the Son, for sinners, for broken people, is alive today and ready to respond to you, for you.
This is the last great teaching with regard to the miracles of Jesus, that He is the same yesterday, today and forever and that the blessings of Christ, the compassion
of God, the love of heaven, is still poured out upon those who trust in him. Let’s not argue this day about whether miracles such as these are done in our time. Let’s not raise our eyebrows in disgust because someone thinks miracles are done today and another
thinks not. Let’s not go there…not now…not with this picture before us.
Instead, I see the rejoicing of the demoniac now set free. See the joy of Peter’s mother in law, who now gets to serve Jesus, gets to wait on him and care for those
things He needs. Join in the dancing of a multitude of people who would leave Christ’s presence rejoicing and singing praises to God for what He has done for them. See how they come to Jesus to gain help in their time of great need? Should we, you and I,
not be doing the very same every day? Certainly it is so, and as we do, we will have the same happy story to tell as they did!
Not perhaps the casting out of a demon, as that is the picture, the enacted parable, but greater blessings and tangible ones as well. If not a demon cast out, how
about the intimate closeness of Jesus in your loneliness? How about the Lord saying to you of whatever needs to be cast away, be muzzled…be stilled? Do what these folks did, go to Jesus and make requests of Him as those did in Peter’s house…make requests
of Him, tell Him, Lord I have this problem, help me if you are willing, for only you can. Will he turn you away? Do you not know him to be the friend of sinners? Do you not know him to be the lover of outcasts? Is He not the repairer of the broken? Is He
not the one who has stormed the gates of hell and broken them and their bondage for those who trust Him? The miracles of Jesus that we read about in Holy Scripture, if you are listening, if you are paying attention, will chase you right into the arms of the
One who saves all the wrong people.
Prayer: Father, I see myself in these broken, rejected and despairing people. I pray that I would also know the kind and gracious work you do for sinners. Help
me to see clearly what you have done, and are doing that I too might be free from fear, loneliness, exile and hopelessness. And may I rise to leap for joy because of the miracle of new life and victory over sin, and death that is mine in Jesus Christ, for
it is in His name I pray, Amen.
Hymn: O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing