March 31, 2025: Isaiah 65:17-25 Psalm 30:1-6, 11-13 John 4:43-54
Water into wine, death into life: what extraordinary transformations! In John’s Gospel, these miracles are called signs. And I think that’s actually more descriptive language to describe what Jesus was up to. Miracles were called “signs” because they were intended to point beyond themselves, revealing Jesus as the bearer of God’s ultimate glory, rather than the magician of occasional supernatural events. The Greek word “sēmeion,” translated as “sign,” means something that points to something beyond itself, like a road sign. In John’s Gospel, miracles are never just about the event itself, but about what they reveal about God’s purposes. They are fundamentally signs of hope.
And don’t we need some of those signs of hope right now? Not to say that there’s something wrong with miracles as one-off supernatural events, if you believe in that kind of thing. Pro-tip: you don’t have to in order to be a follower of Jesus. But in our Scriptures, we’re not supposed to look upon miracles as special gifts given to the lucky few. That would neither be fair, nor consistent with the scriptural witness of the God who longs to call together a people of shared values and hope.
As some of you may be aware, White House Spiritual Advisor Paula White is currently selling the promise of seven “supernatural spiritual blessings” for a gift of $1000 or more to her ministry. It’s evidently a special deal for Lent. I know that this news headline is kind of low-hanging fruit in the world of commercialized miracles, but I mention it because it points to a danger in our interpretation thereof. If we understand miracles as a gift to a particular person or family or nation, then they can become a commodity or be bought and sold.
On the other hand, if miracles are a sign of something emerging, then they are given to encourage all of us in our faith. They direct us further up and further in, as CS Lewis described the journey allegorically in The Last Battle. They point towards, as Lewis envisioned it, “a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking-glass.
And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time there were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know.”
This realer-than-real place is a vision of our ultimate hope as Christians: not of heaven as a reward for a few, neither of miracles as a one-off event for the enjoyment of a . But rather they are a revelation of hope for earth and all its creatures restored to the goodness and glory God originally intended for them. Jesus gave them to some so that all might imagine what’s possible. The signs in John’s Gospel—healing the sick, feeding the hungry, raising the dead—are a preview of the righteous reign of God. And while I thank CS Lewis for his holy imagination, I disagree that it’s a story we’ve never heard but very much want to know. In fact, it’s a story we tell and hear every time we gather for worship, and it sounds like this—
“I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.”
