*Simple Faith

Two curly-haired children stood in front of their father as he knelt down to hug them. They were dressed in their best clothes: Jimmy in dark pants, white shirt, suspenders, and bowtie, and Jenny in a pink dress, white shoes, and ribbons in her golden hair. It was not every day that they went down to the train station to see their father off on a long trip.

Daddy was talking. "I'm going to be gone for a while—I don't know how long, but I'll be back before you know it. I have to take care of some business out of the country, and once that's done, I'm coming home to stay. So, mind your Momma and do your chores to help her out. You'll both probably be a foot taller when I get back, but I will be back, I promise."

He gave their mother a kiss and a long hug, and then he was gone. The train pulled out of the station, and they waved like mad as they watched it chug away. Soon, there was nothing else to see, so they sadly returned home, changed clothes, and went about their daily routine.

Days passed, then weeks, then months. Daddy's business overseas seemed to be taking longer than he had thought. Momma told them not to worry, that he would be back with them before they knew it. If they just kept themselves busy, the time would go faster, she said. So Jimmy and Jenny plunged into their school work, did all their chores, read long books, played with the neighbor kids, and grew like beansprouts.

Yet, Daddy still had not come home. As they often did, the children sat on the porch swing in the cool of the evening just before bedtime, watching the fireflies come out. Jenny suspected that Jimmy was down, and he proved it a few minutes later. "I don't think Daddy's coming back," he said. "If he was, he'd be here already. He's forgotten about us."

"That's not true!" said Jenny fiercely, almost shouting. "Daddy said he would come back, so he is coming back!"

Jimmy just shook his head, saying, "How do you know? You're just a little girl."

"So what if I'm a little girl!" she yelled. "Daddy promised! He'll be back soon, just you wait!"

They had similar arguments over the next weeks, Jimmy always doubting, Jenny always certain that their father would arrive home soon. She looked for him everywhere, expecting him to be walking up the drive when she peeked out the front window or be at the train station when they went into town. Jimmy mocked her for a silly goose, but she never wavered in her certainty that their Daddy would come back just as he had said.

Then, suddenly, he was home. They woke up one morning and stumbled out to the kitchen for breakfast, and Daddy was there, kneeling in front of them, giving them the biggest, longest hug that they had ever had! He told them how much he had missed them and how he had wanted to come home sooner, but things had just not worked out until the last few weeks. Then he had hurried back to be with them again for good.

Jenny shed tears of pure joy, refusing to let her father go, but Jimmy was bawling like a baby, choking out, "I'm sorry, Daddy! I'm sorry!"

"What do you mean?" Daddy asked, concerned. "There's nothing to be sorry about."

Wiping away tears, Jimmy said, "I didn't believe you were coming back. Jenny said you would, but it had been so long, and you weren't here, so I thought you would never come back to us."

"Well, here I am!" Daddy said. "Now you know you can trust my word."

*****

While this may be just a story about a little girl's simple faith, it captures the essence of the biblical concept of faith. Sometimes, we tend to make things a bit too theological and difficult, wanting to know all the facets and permutations of a doctrine, but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of faith, it is trusting Him, taking God at His word and believing it. In its most basic form, faith can be expressed in the sentiment, "If God said it, that's good enough for me!"

We grapple with the definition that the author of Hebrews pens in Hebrews 11:1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." We look in various Bible translations for one that will make it plain, something like "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see" (New English Translation). We delve into the Greek words for a clearer picture of the author's intent. We pore through commentaries for learned opinions about the verse—and we may still come away scratching our heads.

We know from verses like Hebrews 11:1 that faith is not simple in all its theological ramifications, but in its everyday use, it is not difficult. While He does not use the word "faith" on this occasion, it is what Jesus alludes to in Luke 11:28, "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!" His declaration is reminiscent of the times when people—usually Gentiles—came to Him for healing and simply believed that, in saying the sick person would be healed, all was well. That was the case when the centurion asked Him to heal his servant, and Jesus "marveled, and said to those who followed, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel'" (Matthew 8:10).

The apostle Paul, speaking of the faith of Abraham, calls him "the father of us all" (Romans 4:16). What marked the greatness of Abraham's faith? Paul answers for us in Romans 4:3, quoting Genesis 15:6: "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." The patriarch trusted God's promise that his descendants from the then-unborn Isaac would be as the number of stars in the heavens (Genesis 15:3-5). God's promise was good enough for him. It would happen just as God had said.

His faith in God's Word sustained him when, years later, God tested him: "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and . . . offer him . . . as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you" (Genesis 22:2). How could his offspring be as numerous as the stars if Isaac died before having children? So, when Isaac asked where the lamb for the offering was, Abraham answered in faith, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering" (verses 7-8). He went so far as to bind his son and raise the knife, knowing, in faith, that God would intervene or perform a resurrection so that His promise would not be broken.

Such is the simple faith God desires us to display in the course of our daily lives. Paul teaches that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). Faith comes and grows when we hear God's Word and believe it, trusting God to do as He has said. So David writes in Psalm 37:5: "Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." That is a promise we can count on!

Signs and Wonders

It is hard to shrug off the impossible. Yet, when it comes to the miracles of Jesus Christ, many people do just that—and gladly. Millions, even a great many who call themselves Christians, are only too eager to avoid or ignore what they mean.

Miracles, signs, and wonders produce two simultaneous but contrary effects: They attract and repel. They attract us because they are rare and amazing, and in the case of Jesus’ miracles, they are also beneficial. People who had not walked for many years caper like goats. The blind can read the sacred scrolls at the local synagogue. The chronically ill regain their health and strength. Lepers, their skin pink and whole, can once again mingle with crowds and rejoin their families. And how many dead men, women, and children does Jesus raise to life? Jesus’ miracles are events that make us want to stand up and cheer.

But, at the same time, these same stupendous miracles repel us. We draw back in uncertainty and fear—perhaps doubtful of their authenticity, certainly terrified of the power of the Miracle Worker. Not only can He raise the dead, but He can also still a raging storm, stroll across a tossing sea, and with a word topple a whole company of soldiers. Demons—even Satan the Devil himself—leave the scene at His command. He feeds four and five thousand people with a few loaves and fishes, and without breaking a sweat, produces dozens of gallons of wine for a wedding party. Perhaps most personally terrifying of all, He knows what is in people’s hearts, almost as if He can read their thoughts.

So is Jesus of Nazareth to be praised or feared for His powerful miracles? Both, of course, for Scripture declares, “O LORD, how great are your works!” (Psalm 92:5), yet also, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). In the miraculous demonstrations of the power of God in Jesus Christ, we see “the goodness and severity of God” (Romans 11:22). Far from being some mere sideshow, His miracles were an integral part of His ministry, and their implications still resound to our day.

Some people consider the miracles of the gospel accounts as a kind of advertizing. The idea is that Jesus would blow into town, heal some well-known leper or cripple or maybe cast out a troublesome demon, and the crowds would gather, hoping to witness more wonders performed before their very eyes. Then, having caught them in His net, Jesus would preach the gospel to them, and many would believe in Him. While they made for an effective marketing technique—and the gospel narratives admit that crowds did gather to see Him perform miracles—there is an element of cynicism in this conjecture, as if Jesus healed the sick or cast out demons callously, calculatingly, just to draw an audience to hear His pitch. In it, He becomes merely a religious huckster, the original Elmer Gantry.

However, this is not the case in the least. Matthew, Mark, and Luke often bring out the fact that, upon seeing the sick and troubled folk brought before Him, “He was moved with compassion” (Matthew 9:36; see, for instance, Matthew 14:14; 20:34; Mark 1:41; 6:34; Luke 7:13). John is the only one who tells us that, at Lazarus’ resurrection, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35) over the people’s grief, as well as over their ignorance and hopelessness. As the prophecy of Isaiah 53 informs us, He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), our Savior who cared for humanity so deeply that He offered Himself to redeem every last person from sin and death. Such a merciful and loving Person does not use parlor tricks, as it were, to gain a following. His concern and desire to help were real.

John’s gospel clues us in to the divine purpose for Jesus’ miracles. After narrating the miracle of the wine at the wedding feast, the apostle adds, “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him” (John 2:11). This verse gives us three purposes for the miracles Jesus did: 1) that they are signs; 2) that they “manifested His glory”; and 3) they helped His disciples to believe in Him. They did attract attention to Him, but ultimately, God had deeper, spiritual purposes for them.

John calls this and other miracles a “sign.” A sign is something that identifies or indicates. The Greek word he uses is semeíon, “a sign or distinguishing mark whereby something is known; an event that is an indication or confirmation of intervention by transcendent powers,” according to a leading Greek-English lexicon. Jesus performed this first miracle to identify or indicate something, and the most obvious answer to what that something was centers on who Jesus is. In turning water to wine, Jesus contrasts Himself to Moses, whose first plague turned water to blood (Exodus 7:14-25). In effect, the miracle indicates “a greater than Moses is here,” and that greater One could be none other than the promised Messiah.

This sign “manifested His glory.” In other words, the miracle declared or made known Christ’s special status. Through this wonder, certain people became aware that Jesus was no ordinary man but a higher Being, worthy of all honor and praise. We could go so far as to say that these people, whose eyes had been opened, could conclude that He was indeed God in the flesh, for only the Creator God had enough power over nature to change one substance into another and with such perfect results. The same could be said of His other miracles: No one but God could do what He did.

Finally, the apostle tells us that the miracle at Cana confirmed or strengthened His disciples’ faith. Turning water into wine was a proof that erased any doubt that they may still have had about His own or John the Baptist’s claims about Him. They not only believed who He was, but they could now fully believe what He said. They could trust Him to reveal the deep spiritual truths of God because they experienced His power in action producing excellence and good. If He would go to such lengths to make a wedding feast joyous and save the couple from embarrassment, what would He not do to save us and give us eternal life?

John does not say it, but mingled with this boosting of their faith must have been at least a twinge of the fear of the Lord. When we walk with God, He will certainly help us and bless us through the working of His power. But what form would His power take if we should cross Him and become His enemy? That sword has two edges, as Hebrews 4:12 attests.

Far more than some kind of “magic,” the miracles of Jesus Christ teach us profound lessons about Jesus, His mission, His message, and our responses to Him. We scoff at them or ignore them to our peril.