Have you ever thought about the various differences between Jesus’s miracles? What I have found interesting lately is what Jesus requires from his audience who witnesses the miracles. In the Gospel of Mark, many of Jesus’s miracles were ordered to be kept a secret. Here is a list of some of the miracles where Jesus requested that the miracle or the miracle worker be kept a secret.
- Cleansing of a Leper (Mark 1:42–44)
- Exorcism of Demons (Mark 3:10–12)
- The resurrection of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:35–42)
- Healing of the deaf man (Mark 7:33–37)
- Healing of the blind man (Mark 8:22-26)
Why would Jesus keep many of his signs and healings a secret? There are likely multiple reasons for this. For one, Jesus wanted people to come to their own conclusion on His identity. We see an example of this when Jesus asks his disciples, “who do you say I am?” When Peter answers “You are the Christ the Son of God,” Jesus tells him to tell no one. Jesus also wanted people to seek him out for reasons of faith, and not merely as a miracle worker. Ultimately, this does not work most of the time. Jesus’s fame spreads quickly, and he attracts crowds of people wherever he goes.
So then what do we make of the times where Jesus publicly does miracles that he wants everyone to see? It seems like on the Sabbath day Jesus had a different method for his miracles. Jesus made sure that if he healed on the Sabbath that it was not done in secret, but in front of everyone. There are two separate occasions of this in the Gospels: the healing of the crippled woman, and the healing of the man with the withered hand.
As Jesus was publicly teaching on the Sabbath he called a woman to him who had a bent back. You can imagine her struggling over to him, and then Jesus does the unthinkable and heals her in front of everyone. This causes quite a commotion and the synagogue leader is enraged. Jesus’s response is powerful, Satan has bound this woman for 18 years, does she not deserve to be freed from her disability on the Sabbath day?
In Marks account of the man with the withered hand, Jesus knows that the Pharisees are waiting to see if he will perform a miracle on the Sabbath. He surprisingly gives them exactly what they want, and heals a man with a withered hand. Jesus is angered by the hardness of their hearts and reminds that it is always a right time to do good.
So what lessons can we learn from the miracles of Jesus? When it comes to doing good works, follow Christ’s example. Don’t do good works for bringing glory and attention to yourself, but do it for the glory of God. However, if you get a chance to expose the foolishness of evil by doing a good deed, then do not wait for a better opportunity! “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather expose them (Eph 5:11).”
Jared Kelly
Dalraida church of Christ is a congregation of Christians that meet in the mid-town area of Montgomery, Alabama. Our goal and purpose is to seek and follow God and His Word in everything that we do in life.