In our reading for today it says that Jesus goes on his way through "all their cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness" (9:35). First comes the teaching; then come the miracles.
Our reading for today is chock-a-block full of miracles. In the Gospel of Matthew it is a pattern-- first comes the teaching—yesterday we heard the Sermon on the Mount—and now today come the miracles. For the evangelist Jesus' miracles don't just validate his teaching, they are necessary to complete it.
Remember the first words that Jesus speaks in Matthew's Gospel—"Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near" (4:17). Jesus' miracles—his "mighty acts"--are evidence that God's kingdom is even now breaking into a world bound by disease, decay and death. In Jesus' appearance God's kingdom comes. In Matthew Jesus is presented as the "Great Rabbi," the "New Moses," the "Living Teacher of the Church." His miracles do not validate his identity—He is who He is—instead they describe and foreshadow the kind of existence he promises by his teaching. They illustrate a world where the meek in fact inherit the earth and where those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are indeed satisfied (5:1ff).
The miracles aren't ornamental; they are crucial to an understanding of his message. You can't remove them and have Jesus—that's very important to remember. The Gospel stories are in agreement with such Jewish sources as we have available to us in affirming that Jesus of Nazareth did do miracles—acts of power. The source of that power was sometimes in doubt. His enemies alleged that he utilized the power of Satan in doing them (see Matthew 12:24-37). A belief that natural laws are amenable to the will of God lies at the center of the Biblical world view. It would never have occurred to the Gospel writers and their first readers to doubt that the Creator molds his creation to suit his will, and that the power to create is alive and at work in Jesus.
We modern Christians are uneasy with miracles; we tend to cherry-pick the miraculous stories recorded in the Gospels—some we like and others we tend to ignore. For instance, the healing of the centurion's slave (Matthew 8:5-13) is a particularly appealing miracle, partly because of the remarkable character of the centurion himself. Jesus himself is impressed by this foreign soldier. "In no one in Israel," he remarks, "have I found such faith." He compares this Gentile officer's trust to the cynical hard-heartedness of the "heirs of the kingdom"—Jesus' fellow Jews—and finds them wanting. But it is not just his faith that attracts us. The tender concern of the officer for his slave, who is "paralyzed, in terrible distress," is remarkable in a time when slaves were often treated as mere objects. Though he is a person of importance—the Roman officer in charge of a unit (a century) of foot soldiers—he entreats Jesus' to heal his slave with dignity combined with becoming humility. He shows a remarkable cultural sensitivity; although Jesus is willing to come to his house, the centurion knows that coming under the roof Gentile might well compromise his scruples as an observant Jew, and declines to let him. "Lord, I am not worthy . . . ," he says. Instead he acknowledges the power of Jesus to order the world as he commands his soldiers--"Only speak the word, and my servant will be healed."
This is a very important theme in the Gospel of Matthew--the creative power of the word that made creation is present in Jesus of Nazareth. By a word of power Jesus subdues the chaos of the storm on the Sea of Galilee —he "rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a dead calm" (8:26). He says "go" to the evil spirits and the demon-ridden Gadarenes, and they go into a herd of swine which drown themselves in the sea (8:32). Jesus says "stand up, take up your bed and go home" to the paralytic, and he does—to the consternation of the scribes (9:6)
And so it goes. A word spoken by Jesus has the power to recreate a ravaged world and ruined lives. Where ever Jesus and his disciples go, miracles follow. But first comes his teaching. It is the primary word of power. The teaching of Jesus establishes what the kingdom of God is, and then his miracles embody it. They make his reign immediate and "real" to us. Through them his kingdom comes. So miracles are not ornamental to the gospel story—they are crucial. If God does not do miracles, he is powerless to establish his kingdom among us and within us.
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