The Reason for Miracles
by Pastor Mark Downey
January 5, 2014
Scripture Reading: Luke 4:14-24
When Jesus began His ministry, at the age of 30, after 40 days of fasting, He returned “to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread throughout the whole surrounding region. And He began teaching in their assembly halls and was praised by all” Luke 4:14-16. His popularity was spreading like wildfire, because they were excited about somebody fasting that long; surely there would be a significant revelation. He went to His home town of Nazareth, which was similar to today’s White Nationalists (who give lip service to the Creator of our race, but do not serve Him), and had the expectation of a warlike Messiah delivering them from Rome. Some of the locals remembered the birth of Christ as something scandalous; as Mary claimed to have been miraculously impregnated by the Holy Spirit.
On one of these occasions where Jesus spoke to the assembled, we read the account in Luke 4 where He stood up to read from Isaiah 61:1-2, “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the assembly were fixed on Him” Luke 4:16-20. A miracle, to give sight to the blind, is it not? Or hearing to the deaf? But that’s not what they wanted to hear. Although the clause “He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted” in Isaiah 61:1 is inspired, all of the Greek texts omit this passage in Luke (even though the KJV has added it).
Christ was reading about Himself; He not only came to heal the blind, but to open the eyes of those who were spiritually blind as well. God told Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord” Ex. 4:11. Israel has always had this blind side.
