Sometimes, amazing things happen before our very eyes. On a road trip Jennifer and I recently took, the starter motor on my truck just decided to quit. We stopped and started the engine many times during the trip. In Cuba, Missouri, it decided it was done. We had pulled into a gas station late afternoon on a Friday. After filling it up, I turned the key and zip; not even so much as a grunt. Absolute silence. I had to think for a moment if I had forgotten how to start my truck. Nope. It was dead. Our first response was to pray. We then called our road service, and they told us they could get us towed to a service place, but nothing was open until Monday. That wasn’t going to work. Our tow truck driver showed up and as he was loading my truck, I told him our situation. Long story short, he told us he could help us as he had a friend that was a mechanic. He told us to go check in at the hotel across the street and he’d meet us the next morning. Jennifer and I were a bit skeptical, but we really didn’t have much choice. True to his word, the next morning he picked us up and drove us to his house where his friend was waiting. An hour later we were on the road. He even got us a new starter motor at a discount because he was friends with the auto parts store manager. Now perhaps this was not a miracle in a “healing a blind man” sense, but to us it was clearly God working and bringing things together.
The Pharisees were not happy with Jesus. They took great offense that Jesus was performing miracles, in particular, performing them on the Sabbath. Rather than look at the blind man who was healed with awe and amazement, they were more concerned with the day of the week on which it was performed. Jesus told the Pharisees “Do not believe me unless I do the works of the Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Jesus urged the Pharisees to believe if not in him, then to believe in the miracle and thereby realize the evidence of God. By doing so, it may clear the fog of their eyes, and they would come to not just know of God, but through Jesus to know God.
Jesus is the perfector of our faith. God’s work is actively all around us. The Pharisees reacted not with belief, but with fear of what Jesus’ works would do to them. Not what they would gain, but what they could lose. We must be on guard not to dismiss even the smallest of miracles. Scripture tells us that creation itself proclaims the existence of God. The rocks cry out. God’s Word speaks for itself, and so do God’s works.
The Pharisees were not happy with Jesus. They took great offense that Jesus was performing miracles, in particular, performing them on the Sabbath. Rather than look at the blind man who was healed with awe and amazement, they were more concerned with the day of the week on which it was performed. Jesus told the Pharisees “Do not believe me unless I do the works of the Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Jesus urged the Pharisees to believe if not in him, then to believe in the miracle and thereby realize the evidence of God. By doing so, it may clear the fog of their eyes, and they would come to not just know of God, but through Jesus to know God.
Jesus is the perfector of our faith. God’s work is actively all around us. The Pharisees reacted not with belief, but with fear of what Jesus’ works would do to them. Not what they would gain, but what they could lose. We must be on guard not to dismiss even the smallest of miracles. Scripture tells us that creation itself proclaims the existence of God. The rocks cry out. God’s Word speaks for itself, and so do God’s works.