Medicine Man

Jesus worked a ton of miracles. Power literally spilled off of him. If you got close enough to touch him, just a piece of his clothes, you’d get an instant cure. He didn’t turn anyone down, and he never said, sorry, too tired to heal today. Jesus touched people who shouldn’t have been touched and gave the unclean a chance to re-enter society healthy and whole.

A lot of people look at miracles as some kind of proof. Proof that there is a God, proof of Jesus’ power. Yet Jesus never used his miracles as a magic now-you’ll-believe-me pill. In fact, he told the people who wanted proof that they wouldn’t get any. He didn’t do miracles to make people believe or to show off his power.

In fact, the biggest miracles only happened in front of one or two people. Jesus calmed the storm when only the disciples in the boat could see, not the huge crowd. Only three people saw him bring a little girl back to life. Jesus kept his big miracles quiet. They weren’t about showing off.

So why work miracles? If they were not proof, what purpose did they serve?

Look at the types of miracles Jesus performed. There are only three. We like the flashy stories of calming the storm and walking on water, but Jesus rarely tampered with the forces of nature. Most of the miracles deal with basic physical needs-food and healing.

I hate getting sick. When I have a cold or a sore throat everything I do becomes a chore. I am never comfortable, never happy, always snappy and grumpy. I don’t want to worry about how other people feel, I just want to get better. Being sick shuts us out of society. We have to be careful not to spread germs, we don’t have the energy to get out and see people. When our body doesn’t work right, if affects every aspect of our lives.

Jesus was all about restoring lives. He was all about helping people get accepted by society. He wants us to be whole, and that doesn’t just mean saving souls. Jesus was about saving lives. Our bodies and our souls are bound together. Jesus wants to be whole and healthy spiritually and physically. He wants to heal us fully, not just our hearts. His miracles were a peek into the future, to a time when every sickness will be healed and every body will be whole. There will be no more pain and no more disease, no more sore throats or stuffy noses, no more disability or contagions. When Jesus healed people’s bodies, he changed their lives.

Then he told his disciples to ‘Go and do likewise.’ Do what I do. Take care of people. Heal their hearts and help heal their physical needs. Food, disease, clean water, the quest for social justice is in integral part of Jesus’ message. The world cannot know His love while children are suffering from AIDS with no doctors to help, while some people starve without a second thought or a helping hand from the people who have freezers full of food.

Jesus didn’t just come to save souls, he came to change lives on the most physical, basic level. Now we are his hands and feet. So why are people still hungry and sick? We’ve forgotten how to work miracles. Not just the supernatural, when one loaf of bread feeds five thousand people, but the simple, natural miracle of reaching out a helping hand to all who have need.