Apr 07 2008
signs (intro)
I got to speak last night at Mountain’s student ministry, FUEL. It was great fun. I love to preach and I love to be with students. One of the special blessings of last night was that I got to lose a game of ping-pong. I love ping-pong and have not played in many years. It was great to play again. (Shout out to Wesley Barnes for being willing to play with the old guy and for letting me score 17 points. I am aware that the last five were just out of mercy.)
But this isn’t a post about ping-pong. Instead it is a post about signs. The student ministry has just started a series called Miraculous and are spending the next few weeks studying several of the miracles of Jesus. It is gonna be a lot of fun. I got to preach on John 2 and Jesus turning water into wine. In the gospel of John, you will notice a curious thing about the miracles of Jesus. They are called signs. When I finally encountered this language and contemplated what it means, it transformed my understanding of miracles.I used to wonder. If miracles were for the sake of healing the sick, why not heal everyone? If miracles were for the sake of feeding the hungry, then why not feed people everywhere? If miracles were for the sake of reversing death, why not raise everyone who dies? By what criterion does Jesus choose? Why after so many miracles will Jesus refuse to perform one more for Herod?
John’s use of the word sign holds the answer. Miracles are not deeds of power that exist for there own sake. They are even miraculous responses to the needs of the people. Even the miracles of healing are not ultimately about sickness. All of these are signs.
With the students, we discussed that a sign is something that get your attention and then points to something else. To stand around admiring a sign and never look to see what it identified or follow where it pointed, would be to miss the whole purpose of a sign.
In the same way, miracles are signs that point to something beyond themselves. However impressive the sign may be it only exists to direct us to something even more important.
Over the next few weeks, I hope to talk about a few of these signs and try to figure out what they are telling us. If you have any you especially want to discuss, don’t be shy.
I’ll start tomorrow with some reflections on Sunday’s sermon discussing the healing of a paralytic.
on the walk
-Ethan
