What was it like for the people who saw Jesus do miracles? What would their reaction be? What would it be like to be in one of the people in the crowd of 5,000 that Jesus fed with five loaves of bread? Would you have even known what was going on with the food? What would it be like to see him heal a blind man or drive a demon out of someone? What would be your response?
When I wrote the song Water Into Wine, I started from the perspective of someone who was in the crowd when Jesus performed his miracles. The huge crowds that followed Jesus were probably more because of the miracles he performed and less because they liked his message. The possibility of being healed was more appealing to the crowds that some of the difficult lessons that Jesus taught.
This is why the song comes from the perspective of the rich young man found in the story in Matthew 19:16-26. Because he is following Jesus, I assumed he had been around for some of the miracles. Because of the question that he asks, I assume that he has found something appealing in Jesus’ message.
I know that people look to Jesus to perform miracles today. We want the sick to be healed. We want that new job that pays more. We want that storm to go by us and not do any damage. We want God to strike down the people that we don’t like. Sometimes the miracles we want seem more like parlor tricks. We want God to rig the laws of nature in our favor.
The rich man was a good man. He knew God’s law and followed it. He was fortunate enough that it did appear that the laws of nature had been rigged in his favor. Still, he was looking for something more. The promise of eternal life was appealing and he wanted to know what he needed to do to get that life. His heart was with his money and he needed a change of heart. He needed a miracle in his life to change his heart and he went away sad because he was unwilling to let that happen. I don’t think he believed that it could happen. I identify with this man because most of the time, I think it would be easier for God to move a mountain or get a camel through the eye of a needle that it would be for him to change my heart.
Some people believe that God doesn’t do miracles any more. That kind of thing only happened during biblical times. God doesn’t work that way anymore. Some treat the stories in the Bible more like fairy tales, stories that aren’t true and are only there to teach us lessons. Some believe that there are no miracles in the Bible, just occurrences that can be explained away either through science or some other means. They believe that there had to be more than 5 loaves of bread to feed 5,000 people. It’s just a story about everyone sharing rather that a miracle.
Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe that God can change your heart? Are you willing to let him try?