God's Last Words

MIRACLES!

LUKE 7: 1-10 (NRSV) 

My dictionary defines “miracle” as an extraordinary occurrence that surpasses all known human powers or natural forces and is felt to be caused by some divine or supernatural cause.  

The Biblical definition of “Miracle” (Greek word “dynamis”) means any action of the Holy Spirit or power of the Lord.  

The definition of “can’t” (Greek word “dynamai”) means being unable to complete or have success in an action. Isn’t it interesting that the difference between these two words is two letters that represents divine action in one and hopelessness in the other? 

In many of the instances of Biblical miracles the difference is often the faith that is demonstrated in God or Jesus Christ that allows it to happen.  

There is a hint (if we remember that Jesus couldn’t perform a deed of power because of His skeptical family) that miracles may not occur if there is skepticism, doubt, a can’t attitude. God is not to be tested or mocked. 

Have you realized that every action of a supernatural, all powerful God, are actually miracles when viewed by an imperfect, limited, and flawed humanity? This fits in with our dictionary definition. 

Augustine wrote that “miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.”  

In the Book “Charlotte’s Web” written by E. B. White Mrs. Arable says, “What’s miraculous about a spider’s web?I don’t see why you say a web is a miracle – it’s just a web.” “Ever try to spin one?,” asked Mrs. Dorian. 

Albert Folgar wrote “It would be a miracle, for example, if I dropped a stone and it rose upwards. But we do not see a miracle that it falls to the ground?”Let’s read our Gospel lesson for today and see the miracle related here:

 

After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 

²A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. ³When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. ⁴When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, ⁵for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” 

⁶And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; ⁷therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. 

⁸For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” 

⁹When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” ¹⁰When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health. 

This interaction recorded in Luke’s Gospel is a revealing peak behind what is going to happen with the overall miracle story of Jesus and why it must happen.  

As I said several weeks ago we failed in the Garden of Eden, we (through the Jews) failed as the Chosen people, and we are failing as the church. This passage shows us that due to God’s eternal optimism that at some point things will be put right. 

The centurion was the backbone of the Roman army. Each legion was made up of sixty centuries (or hundreds), each commanded by a centurion. He was a veteran soldier and had a position of prestige - he was paid about fifteen times as much as an ordinary soldier - as well as given almost absolute authority.  

His would wear chest armor of tough molded leather, a transverse-plumed helmet, and the wooden baton he carried would identify him as a centurion. 

Luke does not specify whether the centurion in question was an Israelite or non-Israelite but the hints seem to indicate he isn’t. There were Jews who served in the Roman army in various ranks. The General Josephus, who went on to write history books from a Jewish perspective, was such a person.

The fact that this centurion built a synagogue with no mention of a temple in the region would be very unusual unless he had some type of Jewish lineage, tie, sympathy, or connection. Jesus treats him as a gentile. 

As an officer representing Rome, the centurion would serve as the branch office manager of the Roman Empire for the local population.  

In our passage Jesus says that this non-Jewish centurion displays more faith than anyone Jesus has encountered in all of Israel so far in his ministry. In fact, Jesus is saying that this man’s grasp of the concept of faith is the object lesson that he wants his followers and us to learn. The centurion’s faith is part of the miracle. 

Albert Einstein once said, “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other way is as though everything is a miracle.” 

Believing in miracles can be difficult for most people. Thinking or accepting that supernatural events are happening or have happened is impossible for some people to believe. 

We live is a world that has chosen to minimize the very thought of God. There is even a growing group of people who, even as they are becoming disenchanted with evolutionary theory, still can’t stomach the idea of a creator God. They are becoming certain that human life on earth must have been “planted” by some great intergalactic Johnny Appleseed. 

In the Herald-Mail newspaper this morning there was a semi-serious article about a coming “zombie apocalypse” that would never have been printed 50 years ago. 

Fifty years ago such thoughst would have been ridiculed. But it shows us how much people today are struggling to provide explanations to the questions no one can answer without God. But they can’t or won’t see the miracles around them. 

The call to faith in God and Jesus Christ asks us to believe the ultimate miracle: That there is a loving Creator God who desires communion with His creation and the people He created in His own image.  

Most of us will not physically see God until we meet Him in heaven – so we are asked to take His existence on faith and the evidence of His presence around us as the ultimate testimony to His Love. 

The example of the believing centurion, who becomes the most unlikely source of testimony in support of Jesus without meeting and talking directly to him, inspires our own acts of faith today. The nature and Sacrament of Communion is a miracle! Amen.