The Purpose of Christ’s Miracles In His Epiphany

Over the coming weeks the daily devotions will focus on the many miracles of Jesus, in preparation for these wonderful narratives we have provided for today a condensed version of the Concordia Lutheran article titled The Purpose of Christ’s Miracles In His Epiphany  

“These [miracles] are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His Name.”  — John 20:31

The word Epiphany means “appearing” or “manifestation;” and the holy Epiphany season on our church calendar marks the Lord Jesus’ manifestation of Himself to men here in this world as the Son of God, the long-promised Messiah and the Redeemer of mankind.  The Epiphany of Our Lord or Epiphany Day is a “fixed” festival in the church year, occurring on January 6th and commemorating specifically Jesus’ manifestation to the Wise Men from the East (Matthew 2:2).

The remainder of the Epiphany season is devoted to other “manifestations” of our Savior in His office as our Divine Prophet, manifestations in which “He revealed Himself by word and deed” (Catechism Q/A 132a), that is, by His preaching and by His miracles, to be the Son of God and the Redeemer of the world.  And so, in the standard Gospel lessons during the Epiphany season (one to six Sundays after the Epiphany of our Lord, depending upon the date of Easter), Jesus is manifested to us especially in narratives that, for the most part, center upon His miracles.

We commonly define a miracle as a phenomenon which defies scientific explanation on the basis of natural law, a feat of which man is incapable without divine assistance or empowerment, or a work that only God Himself can do.  For the skeptic who questions the validity of anything that cannot be empirically verified, and for the rationalist who subjects everything to the test of reason, there is no such thing as a miracle, only an occasional “unexplained” and “unsolved mystery.”  In this “scientific” and “enlightened” age characterized by the worship of “self,” the arrogance of human intellect, the philosophy of “secular humanism,” and the denial of a personal God, every miracle from the creation of the world to the resurrection of Jesus Christ is either rejected out of hand or is reduced to the status of mere myth or legend.

Those who either deny or minimize the importance of Jesus’ miracles seem to forget that Isaiah, over seven hundred years in advance, prophesied by inspiration of the Holy Ghost that the long-promised Messiah would be able to be positively identified by His preaching and by the very specific miracles which He would perform.  Jesus pointed the disciples of John the Baptist to this positive identification of Himself as the very Messiah of God, the Savior of the world, (Matthew 11:4-6).  On another occasion, shortly after His temptation by the devil, in a Sabbath-day sermon in a synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus read Isaiah 61:1-2, in which the Messiah Himself speaks of His God-anointed prophetic office and says: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord….”  And, in His exposition of this text, Jesus stated for all to hear, to “bear witness,” and to “wonder at,” this identification of Himself: “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:16 ff.).

The Jews of Jesus’ day could not refute this prophetic evidence of His Messianic office, for Nicodemus, “a man of the Pharisees…a ruler of the Jews” admitted on behalf of his colleagues: “Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him” (John 3:1-2).  Yet, in spite of this evidence, the Jews generally and especially their leaders rejected Him as the Messiah.

This challenge of the Lord Jesus in His Epiphany to men, in His manifestation of Himself as the Son of God and the Redeemer of the world, is before us still today: “Believe the works!  They bear witness of Me!”  For in His miracles the Savior not only demonstrated His merciful kindness toward those for whose immediate benefit they were performed; He also “manifested forth His glory,” as He did at the wedding in Cana (John 2:11). The miracles are also recorded in the Scriptures for US, “upon whom the ends of the world are come” (I Corinthians 10:11).  Jesus, of course, in His going about and doing good (Acts 10:38) during His public ministry, as a function of His prophetic office, did “many other [miraculous] things” than those written down in the Gospels, “which,” says John, “if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:25).  That fact, in and of itself, is truly amazing!

But the purpose of CHRIST’S miracles recorded in Holy Writ is clear and indisputable: “These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His Name” (John 20:31), the most salutary purpose of all.  For His miracles have, for our sakes, validated Jesus of Nazareth not only as “the Mighty God” but as “the Prince of Peace,” (Isaiah 9:6), “the Holy One of Israel, [our] Savior” (Isaiah 43:3).  The record of His miracles has thus been made a functional part of the Gospel message, “the power of God unto salvation,” through which the Holy Spirit operates in our hearts to “make [us] wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (II Timothy 3:15).  May we therefore treasure the holy record of our Savior’s miracles, value the manifestation of His glory to us, cling to the validation of His office as our anointed Redeemer, and ever confide in the forgiveness of all our sins by virtue of His perfect vicarious atonement!

Manifest at Jordan’s stream,
Prophet, Priest, and King supreme,
and at Cana Wedding-Guest
in Thy Godhead manifest;
manifest in power divine,
changing water into wine,
anthems be to Thee addressed:
God in man made manifest!

(TLH 134, 2)