Friday, September 19, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Journey
Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another,
preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God.
Accompanying him were the Twelve
and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities.
I have journals and poetry chronicling my own journeys, some of which involved preaching and proclaiming. Not often, however were there healings or miracles of deliverance.
Until I think about it a little longer. When I get a note from a friend from olden days, as I did yesterday, I remember prayers together, mutual revelations and the joy of shared salvation. And in every way that’s a major miracle, at all times and in all places.
I imagine John, writing his Gospel in the later years of his life, reveling in those memories when he wrote in conclusion, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” According to the Rose Bible list of Jesus’ miracles, John described only six of them, while Matthew spoke of 21, and Luke 22. John’s emphasis is on Jesus’ words, sometimes even to a single person (like Nicodemus).
One of our pastors suggested a particular children’s book of Bible stories in a recent class. We don’t have that one, but I did find in my seemingly endless Kindle library another, called God’s Big Picture by renowned bible scholar N. T. Wright, a surprise that felt like finding a lost, forgotten pearl. Grandfather Wright wants to tell the Bible story as more than “little moral lessons for us, more than a Christian version of Aesop’s fables.” He tells 140 stories, “all of which contribute to the big story of the world in which God wants to come and be at home with us, his human creatures.”
One of John’s six miracles is the raising of Lazarus. It’s also one of Wright’ stories.
Jesus came to Lazarus’s tomb, followed by a crowd of mourners. There was a large stone across the entrance. Everyone was crying. Then Jesus burst into tears as well. “Take the stone away,” he said. “But he’s been dead four days!” cried Martha. “There’ll be a bad smell!” Jesus tried to calm her. “If you believe,” he said, “you will see God’s glory.”
They rolled away the stone, and Jesus prayed, “Thank you, Father, for listening to me.” Then he shouted: “Lazarus! Come out!” And out came Lazarus, wrapped in the strips of cloth in which they had buried him. “Unwrap him,” said Jesus, “and let him go.” (p. 192)
At the end of each story, Tom Wright asks, “What else in God’s big story links up with this?”
“Jesus Heals a Girl,” found in Matthew 9 and Mark 5. And “Jesus Rises from the Dead” in John 20.
Jesus was smiling. “Mary!” he said. Mary looked up, and her heart started to pound. “Teacher!” she said. And the tears she was crying turned from tears of sorrow to tears of joy. After a while, Jesus said, “Go and tell my disciples that I’m going to go away to be with my Father and your Father.” Mary wanted to stay with Jesus, but she did what he said and went to tell his disciples that Jesus was alive. (p. 220)
And what else in God’s story links up with this? “God Promises to Rescue His People,” found in Isaiah 40, Jeremiah 31, and Ezekiel 36-37. And from there, Grandpa Wright takes us to “The Father Who Forgave” in Luke 15 and “The Promise of a New World” in Isaiah 11, 35, 55 and 65, and from there all the way back to the beginning, “The Garden of Eden” in Genesis 2.
When God created the world, he decided to make a garden. It was called the Garden of Eden. Out of the garden flowed a river that turned into four great rivers, watering the earth. God gave the garden to the first man to look after. It was the most beautiful garden you could imagine. It was how God wanted the whole world to be … The man and the woman were naked, but it didn’t matter. They had nothing to hide from God. (p. 4)
As we know, “The World Went Wrong,” in the story which follows “What are Humans?” from Psalm 8. But before we get to that, Professor Wright takes us from “The Garden of Eden” to “New Heaven, New Earth,” the end of the Bible’s Big Picture, to its last chapters – Revelation 21 and 22.
All this would happen when Jesus returned to complete his reign. So John’s final prayer was, “Yes, come soon, Lord Jesus!”
The final story,  number 140 – “Jesus, the New Beginning,” recounts John 1.
God’s kindness and truth came through Jesus.
Nobody has ever seen God.
God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart,
He has shown us who God really is. (p. 282)
I’d planned to write about miracles and the supernatural realm today, but N. T. Wright captured my child’s imagination. Can’t say I regret the detour. There’s always tomorrow. Paul’s final charge to Timothy invites me to follow every path that leads to God, diligently and with patience.
Pursue righteousness, devotion,
faith, love, patience, and gentleness.
Compete well for the faith and
Lay hold of eternal life.
(1 Timothy 6, Psalm 49, Matthew 11, Luke 8)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
