Do Miracles Lead to Crucifixion?

Mark 1.29-34 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

 That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.(NRSV)

Miracles what do you think of when you hear the word “miracles?”  I don’t know about you, but for me it depends a lot on the context.  There are medical or surgical miracles, when a patient is fatally ill but modern medicine pulls the patient through.  There are death defying miracles, a horrendous accident but somehow the people are able to walk away.  Fantastic sport finishes, the 1980 Winter Olympics Miracle on Ice, or Doug Flutie’s last second Hail Mary.  Or less dramatically but no less miraculous is Tim Tebow actually completing several passes in a row.

Bottom line is when we think of miracles we think of something that challenges or bends the laws of nature and/or science.  Miracles are extraordinary.  In today’s reading from Mark, an episode that picks up right where we left off last Sunday, people begin to show up outside Jesus’ door immediately after sun down.  They show up knowing they will be miraculously healed or to have their unclean spirits cast out.  It is a story that leaves us with no questions as to why people would flock to Jesus’ door or why they would be amazed at his abilities.  But it does leave us with a greater question.  Why would anyone actively oppose such healings and miracles, especially to the point of crucifixion?

Trained by the enlightenment to view the world scientifically maybe we see miracles differently than they did in the ancient world.  What if miracles weren’t so much about challenging the laws of science and nature, but where about challenging the structures of society?  It was common for people in the ancient world to view being ill (especially chronic illness), lame, blind, or deaf with being sinful.  “Who sinned this man or his parents?” the disciples ask Jesus in John after passing a blind man on the street.  To be ill, blind, lame, or deaf meant being less than whole.  It meant being left on the outsides of community.  There were rules in place to prevent people who were ill etc, to fully participate in society to experience real human community.  They were dehumanized.  To the benefit of some in that society, who used their power and influence to keep those structures in place.  But along comes Jesus healing people, casting out unclean spirits and all of a sudden those who were on outside moments before are now no longer.  Jesus’ miracles challenged the barriers that were keeping people separate, barriers that dehumanized some for the benefit of the few. 

If we look at miracles less as things that challenge the laws of nature and science and more as things that challenge the structures of society then the church can still be a place of miracles.  There is a certain amount of danger to becoming a place of miracles, maybe less here in the US than in other places in the world, but still there is a danger.  Many of our social structures want us to remain separate, want us to see people of differing skin color, culture, language, sexual orientation, or religion as being the other; as being on the outside of our communities, as somehow being a threat to our way of being.  But the church is constantly being reminded that we have all, no matter the color of our skin, the language we speak, our sexual orientation, or our religion, been created in the image of God.  And we have been called as the church to challenge all those structures that work so hard to keep us separate.  Miracles are by definition rare, but they do happen and when they do we experience, however briefly or darkly, true community.   Jesus’ miracles are creating a new society, a just and loving society, where all people are whole in mind, body, and spirit.