Signs and Miracles Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Signs and Miracles - Research Paper Example The miracles of Jesus create a representation of his state as the Messiah and close reading with the stories of the miracles, along with an understanding of the past and the future allow the reader to see the miracles than more than just wondrous events. The Eight Miracles During his lifetime Jesus performed a long series of miracles that helped to give credibility to his ministry. In addition, these miracles gave beauty and compassion to the historic value of the nature of his love. His miracles can be broken down into six periods and the stories of those miracles provide different meanings to the context in which they are told. The first period is a â€Å"preparatory period† between his baptism until he calls his disciples to him.1 Four miracles occurred during this time that as it is reported in the histories. He then continued forward to perform sixteen miracles in the first portion of his ministry, eight in the second, six in the third, and four in the last days before hi s death. After his resurrection he performed one miracle. The total number of miracles reported as having been done by Jesus is 34.2 There can be identified eight miracles that are considered to be sign miracles. Leeler, Grimbly, and Wiggins define seven sign miracles that suggest that Jesus is the son of God. These ‘signs’ are intended to signal his arrival and to be taken as reflective of the nature of worship that would be used towards Jesus as the son of God. As well they define him as deified. The first sign, according to Leeler, Grumbly, and Wiggins, is the most important sign as it is the first to signal that he was more than a prophet or a man. The first sign miracle identified is that of the miracle at the wedding feast in Cana where Jesus turned the water into wine.3 The importance of these signs, such as turning the water into wine, is that they are visible and do not leave an abstracted idea of the nature of Jesus. They clearly proclaim that he is divine.4 I n turning the water into wine, the act provided for â€Å"symbolic actions (that) were valuable for his purpose because they were able to integrate several levels of meaning into a coherent whole†.5 Jesus showed himself through compassionate and real life applications of his miracles. The sign of the wine is also connected to prophesy concerning the messiah. According to Koestner, the use of wine was symbolic of the expectation that there would be an â€Å"outpouring of divine favor upon Israel†, the quote from reflections that suggested that â€Å"the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it’ and sometimes connecting abundant wine with the restoration of Davidic rule (Amos 9:11, 13; Joel 3:18; Isa 25:6)†.6 That the messiah was from the line of Davis was an important proof of his deity, however reinforcing that deification through associating his miracles with wine provided for symbolic proof, as well the proof of his lineage. Because of the well known, but sometimes vague nature of prophesy, creating symbolic proofs was as important as creating blatant proofs. Short of crying out this claim, the miracle of creating wine from water was a sign to those who had studied the prophesies that Jesus was the Messiah that Israel had been waiting to arrive. The second sign miracle can be considered as the act of healing the royal official’s son. According to Gross who paraphrases John 4: 46-54, Jesus says to the official that â€Å"