Allow Me To Get A Little More Orthodox For A Brief And Shining Moment
'Scuse me while I don't kiss this guy. From Basic Christian:
These are Seven Miracles performed by Jesus and recorded in the Gospel of John by John a disciple of Jesus. John was an eyewitness present at each of these seven miracles. These miracles are illustrations representing miracles that Jesus is currently doing in the life of each and every Christian....
This first marvelous miracle that Jesus is performing is an illustration to us His believers. When we obey Jesus we become His servant, Romans 6:16 says "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" When we acknowledge our sins and the forgiveness of the cross of Jesus we become clean like the stone water pots. Once we are clean Jesus then comes inside and fills us with His presence. We are then to draw out the wine of Jesus' presence in us and pour it out to others. When we do this we are effecting the lives of others around us....
When we specifically look for miracles we are prone to miss the biggest miracle of all and that is the Spiritual healing of us from death to life. Jesus said the son "liveth" Christianity is not about being bad then becoming good it is about being dead in sin and then becoming suddenly alive to God and life. Notice that Jesus spoke this miracle and healed the son when the son was in a different city than Jesus. It is that way for us, Jesus is in heaven seated at the right hand of the Father, we are here on earth, but we are not out of the effect of Jesus' voice. When Jesus speaks we are healed....
Once the healed man gave credit to Jesus for healing him. The people he told became so upset that Jesus had healed the infirmed man on the Sabbath, they actually sought to kill Jesus. This is the first part of persecution in the Christian walk....
Jesus gives thanks, takes the bread and breaks it, distributing the fragments of bread to feed the multitudes. We often think what do I have to offer in fellowship & Church with other Christians. We look at ourselves and know our problems and our shortcomings. We wrongly think that Christians are "perfect" people and that we need to be "perfect" to fellowship. The reality is that in Jesus He is using the fragments of our life to nourish others in fellowship....
The dark nights and the storms of life will come. It is up to us to look to Jesus and to invite Him into our situation into the very boat of our circumstances. As we look around for Jesus we need to look up to see Jesus, for He is above our problems He is walking on the waters. Jesus is above the very storms that threaten to capsize us....
Then Jesus instructed the man to "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation, Sent." In Greek the pool of Siloam is called the pool of Apostle. Apostle means sent. The Apostles of Jesus are the "sent out ones" But in order to be sent out it is first required to have sight in the light of Jesus and to have our eyes Anointed with the Clay of humanity....
The final miracle of Jesus that we get to participate in is the glorious resurrection of the believer. Jesus called Lazarus by name just as Jesus knows our name and will call us by name to the first resurrection....
Another view:
...I now make some suggestions about the principle of order in the author's selection of the miracles described at some length....
First, and perhaps foremost in its significance for the human being open to logos, is the remarkable symmetry of the arrangement in John. Consider the first and last of our seven miracles, the changing of water to wine and the raising of Lazarus. "Dead" water is transformed into "living water"—just as Lazarus' corpse is reanimated. Is the resurrected Lazarus better than he was before he died, just as the wine provided by Jesus is said to be the best at the wedding party in Cana? Does a better life await man after having been revived by Jesus? I also notice that these two miracles, the first and the last, are performed primarily at the behest of women: the first upon the suggestion of Jesus' mother, the last in response to Lazarus' sisters.
Consider, in turn, the second and the next-to-last miracles, the healing of the nobleman's son and the healing of the blind man. In both of those cases, Jesus works at a distance. That is, the absent child is healed at the hour Jesus says he is healed; the blind man will be healed when he washes off, at another place, the mud that Jesus has put on his eyes. Both of these healings, I notice, are performed at the behest of men: an anxious father, in the first case, the inquiring disciples, in effect, in the second case (as well as, presumptively, the blind man himself).
We move even further from the first and last miracles by turning to the third miracles, counting from the beginning and from the end, that of the healing of the infirm man at Bethesda and that of Jesus walking upon the water. Both of these miracles involve acts of walking: one by the helpless man upon land, the other by Jesus upon the water. Both walkings are water-related: the infirm man was not able to walk (as he desired for his cure) from the land to the miraculous pool at Bethesda; Jesus was able to walk to his disciples in the boat and thus to bring them all to land. Both of the these miracles involve the stirring of water by the wind. Is not God responsible for the effect of the stirring of the water at Bethesda (the curative effect)? But we also see that Jesus can control the effects of storm-tossed water.
We now have left only one miracle in this list, that of the loaves and fishes. I mention a small point first, that just as the land-water relation is critical in the miracles on either side of this central miracle, so the food which is bountifully multiplied comes from both the land and the water....This miracle is also unique in the extent of its beneficiaries. There are far more people here, it would seem, than at the Cana wedding party....
[T]he multiplication of the loaves and fishes is something around which the account of miracles in John turns. Are not the three miracles following this multiplication more impressive, less open to doubt as anything but genuine miracles (if they happened), than the three preceding it? Thus, the raising of the dead is more critical than converting water to wine. (After all, water can be mixed with the remnants of wine, or jars can be substituted.) Thus, the curing of a longstanding blindness is more critical than the curing of a just-sick child (children do have remarkable recuperative powers). And thus, walking upon water (if not even calming a storm) is more critical than curing a bedridden man. (The power of suggestion is obviously more likely to affect the infirm than the sea.) Is there something about the miracle of the loaves and fishes which permits thereafter the "escalation" of the miracles? Are people (including, it seems, the disciples) prepared after that miracle for grander things?
And another view:
[T]he largest section of the Gospel, the “Book of Signs,” begins (1:19–12:50). In this section the Son of God performs seven “signs” (John never uses the term “miracle”) as a witness to his authority and identity. In a real sense, this gospel is a legal document, designed especially to prove Christ’s deity. There are witnesses, testimonies, evidence, and signs....
The Book of Signs, though disclosing seven miracles, is best organized geographically. There are eight locales for the manifestation of the Son of God seen here. As Jesus enters a new locale, the twin themes of Gentile response and Jewish hostility to him increase.
Jesus’ ministry begins in Perea and Galilee (1:19–2:11)....And in Cana of Galilee Jesus performs his first sign: changing the water into wine at a wedding (2:1-11). Although this was his first sign, only a handful of people (including his disciples) knew about it....
Then, Jesus went up from Galilee to Jerusalem for the Passover (2:12–3:36) and cleanses the temple (2:12-22)....
After the pseudo-reception in Jerusalem, Jesus traveled back to Galilee, going through Samaria en route (4:1-42)....
Jesus then returns to Galilee where a second sign is performed, the healing of a royal official’s son (4:43-54)....
In Jesus’ second visit to Jerusalem for “a feast of the Jews” (5:1) he gets involved in a Sabbath controversy (5:1-47). It is caused by his healing of a lame man (his third sign) by the pool of Bethesda (5:1-15). Because he performs such an act on the Sabbath, the Jews plot to kill him (5:16-18)....
Chapter six, once again, finds Jesus in Galilee for a third cycle (6:1-71). This time two signs are given: the feeding of the five thousand—a sign given to the public (6:1-15) and Jesus walking on the water—a sign given to Jesus’ disciples (6:16-24)....
The hostility toward Jesus met its climax when Jesus returned to Judea and Jerusalem for a third time (7:1–11:57)....
The first cycle addresses Jewish unbelief in spite of Jesus’ teaching (7:1–8:59)....
The second cycle addresses Jewish unbelief in spite of Jesus’ healing of a blind man (9:1–10:39). This again was a healing on the Sabbath (9:13-16), and for this very reason the Jews refused to believe that Jesus was sent from God (9:16)....
The third cycle solidified their plot against Jesus’ life. For in this last confrontation, Jesus raises a man from the dead (the seventh sign) (10:40–11:44), causing many Jews finally to believe in him (11:45). The Sanhedrin consequently planned to take his life, out of political and religious expediency (11:48). Unwittingly, the high priest gives the clearest statement of substitutionary atonement found in John’s Gospel (11:50), which John capitalizes on (11:51)....
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