The Miracles of Jesus and His Crucifixion

Like many young people who became a Christian - an evangelical Christian - I started reading the Bible most days. I did not know it at the time, but I basically read the Bible the same way that Muslims read the Koran. Most people I knew seemed to read the Bible the same way, as if there was very little context and as if the genre of the Bible text I was reading did not matter. In fact, I basically read snippets.

The Koran is basically a collection of snippets, of sayings, and there either is no other literary form or if there is, it does not matter. Even though the Bible is not at all like this, many Christians still read the Bible as if every bit of the Bible is just a bit, and you should learn each bit and, sometimes, connect the bits someway or another. They are divinely inspired and inerrant bits, but you read each bit as a bit, each snippet as a snippet.

I mention this because many of us when we read the Gospels read them as a series of bits that are collected together, and in so doing we do not really hear the Bible as we should. You read each miracle story as a bit. You read the crucifixion account as a bit. Now do not get me wrong, the Bible is in fact the inerrant and powerful word of God. Just as in saving us, the Lord “does not weigh our merits but pardons our offenses,” so likewise, the Lord does not weigh our Bible reading skill before He graciously ministers to us through His word. 

How does this relate to my title concerning the miracles of Jesus and His crucifixion? Let’s look.

1. Each of the Gospels is a well written story that has stood the test of time.

Each of the Gospels is an eyewitness based biography written while many eyewitnesses were still alive. But like many fine biographies, they are more like the masterful “Boys in the Boat,” and not like a catalog of facts, sayings and observations. The Gospels have clearly stood the test of time - how many other early first century stories are still read? 

2. Like a well written story, each part of the story contributes to the whole.

I am not going to “out” any movie or series. However, it seems to me as if increasingly movies and stories are written in such a way as to create tension, but the tension creating parts play no role in the story as a whole. It is artificial and irrelevant tension. Police show up and are suspicious of the hero or heroine for a short while, then the police simply vanish from the story. Just as it seems many series and movies have a rule “every ten minutes throw in a fight scene” or some other attention grabbing scene, so now in more “serious” series and movies they say “every episode throw in some serious tension.” I suppose they hope that the audience does not notice.

But the Gospels are not like that. None of the movies or series that are like what I have just described will stand the test of time, but people still read the Gospels 2000 years later. Every “bit” of the Gospel matters and is important to the whole.

3. Stories can form us in deep ways.

This is true of good stories. It is especially true when you read a Gospel from start to finish. So, as part of the Lord’s great grace to you, even when you bring a “bit” mindset to your reading, the story as a whole still shapes you. However, it is far better if you learn to read and interpret the Gospels as if every bit matters to the story as a whole. I will not give away the ending, but the Gospels are in some ways like the movie, “The Sixth Sense.” The ending changes everything you thought you knew about the story.

4. This leads us to a really, really big question, How can the One who performed the miracles He did possibly die on the cross?

Let’s just think of the Gospel of Mark. Time and time again, Jesus healed people. If He could heal people, how could He possibly die on the cross? He couldn’t heal Himself endlessly?

In Mark 4, Jesus stops a storm. If He could do this, how could soldiers possibly have the power to whip Him or hammer nails into His hands and feet? 

In Mark 6, Jesus walks on stormy water and then He stops the wind? Once again, How can someone who did this possibly be captured by soldiers and then crucified?

In Mark 6 Jesus feeds 5000 men (and women and children) and then in Mark 8, He feeds 4000 people. In these miracles, there is more matter in the universe after the miracle than there was before the miracle. If He can create matter out of nothing, how on earth could He be crucified by mere humans?

Finally, for now, in Mark 5 Jesus raises the dead back to life. How could someone like this ever be successfully killed by crucifixion?

5. Who died by crucifixion?

There is a wonderful story close to the beginning of Mark (2:1-12) which provides an important interpretive key to the Gospel as a whole. In this story, a paralyzed man is lowered through the roof so that Jesus would see him and heal him. Jesus shocks the onlookers by first forgiving the man's sins. When challenged on this, Jesus says that to show that He has the authority on earth to forgive sins, He will heal the man. Now, on one hand, this is not logically true. There is no logical connection between healing a person and forgiving their sins. However, this is not about logic, it is about vindicating claims so that the truth about Jesus is revealed. Let’s be honest, to miraculously heal a man by His own authority and power surely vindicates His claim to forgive sins.

There are many texts in Mark’s Gospel to show that Jesus claimed to be God. But the miracles show that He is God. God is Health, He is Health. He is the Sovereign One who is over all the world. He is the Creator. God is Life, He is Life. He is the One who is over the living and the dead and can order a human soul back to its miraculously healed body. He is the One who will bring in the New Heaven and Earth. He is truly God made flesh. So, how could a group of human beings possibly kill Him?

6. It was His love that kept Him on the cross.

The only possible way to understand the crucifixion of Jesus, in light of the whole Gospel to that point, is that it was not the nails that kept Him on the cross. No nails. No human power could keep Him on the cross. Only His obedience to the father and His love for sinful undeserving human beings like you and me could hold Him.

7. Death did not defeat Him, He defeated death.

In a sense, you always walk in light of your approaching death. (Me too!) Because you are foolish, you live as if death is just an option, one you will never choose. But the truth is that you never know the moment that death will strike you - and when death strikes you, you will lose. You will die.

This is not what happened to Jesus.

Alone out of all of the human beings who have ever lived and will ever live, Jesus chose to enter death. He could not die unless He chose to enter death.

At the moment of His death, it looked as death was swallowing Him, defeating Him. But we now know that when He died, He was in fact swallowing death. As John Owen put it, you see in the death of Jesus the death of death.

He died the death that you deserved. He offers you the life that you do not deserve but He deserved. All for love. You receive Him and His inexpressible gift by humble, repentant, thankful faith.

“Love to the loveless shown that you might lovely be. Oh who am I, that for my sake, my Lord should take frail flesh and die?” (Samuel Crossman.)