The miracles are not about the miracles

In Matthew 9, the writer records five healings or miracles of Jesus:

• the healing of the paralytic man
• the healing of the hemorrhaging woman
• the raising of the official’s daughter from the dead
• the healing of the two blind men
• the casting out of the demon from the mute man

Additionally, Matthew notes that “Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness” (v. 35).

Reading a chapter that is so filled with supernatural activity, it might be tempting to presume that Jesus’ ministry was all about making sick people healthy.  It wasn’t.  The miracles weren’t about the miracles.  The feeding of the 5000 was not about giving many people a free meal, raising Lazarus wasn’t about giving a beloved brother back to his grieving sisters, giving legs to a paralyzed man was not about restoring his vitality and giving him an ability to be profitable to society, and the miracles in this chapter were not simply about making people happy by giving them back what they’d lost.

Yet many have assumed that Jesus was all about miracles for the sake of the miracles alone.  So, many ministries today attempt to replicate the miracle ministries of Christ — “You are entitled to miracles,” and “Come…witness a miracle,” and “Make miracles in 40 days.”  And others trivialize the miracles by suggesting they happen regularly in the common events of life — so babies being born, plastic surgery, new cosmetics and clothing, dramatic finishes in sporting events, and even simple acts of kindness all get pushed into the category of “miracles.”  But commonplace activities, by definition, are precluded from being miraculous.  And temporal happiness was never why Christ performed His miracles.

So why did Jesus perform miracles?  Matthew tells us directly and implicitly throughout the ninth chapter of his gospel account.

The healing of the paralytic was done to affirm His deity and authority, but even more, it was done to reveal Christ’s authority to forgive sin:  “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your bed and go home” (v. 6).  Certainly the miracle was a grace in the man’s life that allowed him to return to normal and productive functions; but the miracle also contained an eternal grace — his sins were forgiven, restoring him to fellowship with God.  And that is what the miracle really was about.

The two blind men were repeatedly asking Jesus for mercy.  But the appeal was not only made of Jesus.  Matthew tells his readers that these men were repeatedly asking for mercy from the “Son of David” — a Messianic title.  That is, they were appealing to the One whom they believed to be the Messiah to heal them.  And Jesus’ question of them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” is a way of asking, “Do you believe that I am the Messiah?”  Their affirmative response demonstrates right faith in the right object, and for that reason Jesus healed them.  Their healing was about more than seeing physically.  Their healing was about demonstrating the importance of spiritual sight (cf. John 9, and especially vv. 39-41 for the same principle).

And Jesus did other miracles in this same time frame — too many to be told, evidently (v. 35) — and Matthew notes that while He was performing these miracles, He was also “teaching…and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom…” (v. 35).  In other words, the miracles were simply a platform for Jesus to preach the gospel.  The miracles weren’t just for the sake of drama; they were to demonstrate Christ’s Messianic authority and deity so that His message of the gospel would be heard.

And the conclusion to this chapter affirms this same idea.  After so many miracles, one might assume that the conclusion would be something about Jesus’ healing ministry.  Rather, it is noted that Jesus felt compassion for the people — not because of the pervasiveness of illness — but because of the pervasive lack of shepherds to lead the people spiritually (v. 36).  And because of that lack, He appealed to the disciples to pray for workers to serve the people spiritually — “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest” (vv. 37-38).  So the miracles were designed to demonstrate Christ’s authority, and also to awaken the people and the disciples to the spiritual needs surrounding them.

The miracles weren’t about the miracles — they were about the need for the spiritual miracle of regeneration to transform the hearts of unbelieving and sinful men.