The miracles of Jesus
What he said as he did them — nearly always short, and nearly always a command or a question.
The Gospels record dozens of miracles and rarely linger on the spectacle. What they keep carefully are the words: often a command of two or three words, sometimes an unexpected question, and now and then — as with "Talitha cumi" — the sentence in the very language he said it in.
Here are the best known, each with what he said.
The best known, and what he said
- John 2:7Water into wine at Cana: "Fill the water pots with water"
- Mark 4:39The storm stilled: "Peace! Be still!"
- Matthew 8:3The leper: "I want to. Be made clean"
- John 5:8The paralysed man at Bethesda: "Arise, take up your mat, and walk"
- Mark 5:34The woman with the bleeding: "Daughter, your faith has made you well"
- Mark 5:41Jairus' daughter: "Talitha cumi" — girl, get up
- Matthew 14:16The feeding of the five thousand: "You give them something to eat"
- Matthew 14:27Walking on the water: "Cheer up! It is I! Don't be afraid"
- Mark 10:51Blind Bartimaeus: "What do you want me to do for you?"
- John 11:43Lazarus: "Lazarus, come out!"
One of them, with the scene around it
He awoke, and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" The wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
He was asleep in the stern, on a cushion, and the disciples — several of them fishermen on that same lake — woke him thinking they were about to die. He speaks to the sea the way you would speak to someone. Then he turns to them with a question: "Why are you so afraid? How is it that you have no faith?" The storm outside was settled in a sentence; the one inside was left as a question.
What runs through the miracles
He almost never does a miracle to prove something. When people ask for a sign to be convinced, he refuses. The miracles happen for someone — a woman nobody noticed, a desperate father, a beggar shouting by the road — and often he asks that no one be told.
And often the sentence that matters most comes after the miracle, not before: "your faith has made you well", "go in peace", "sin no more". The body is healed, but the words are addressed to the whole person. In John the miracles are called "signs": they point past themselves, to the one doing them.
His words, one each morning
Walking with Jesus is made only of what he said — including sentences like these, spoken in the middle of a miracle. One teaching a day, with the moment around it, a short reflection, a prayer and one thing to carry into the day.
It is a one-time purchase, about five minutes a morning, and it never asks you to catch up on days you missed.
Questions people ask
- How many miracles did Jesus perform?
- The Gospels describe around thirty-five in detail, depending on how parallel accounts are counted. But they say themselves there were many more: John ends by saying that if everything Jesus did were written down, the world could not hold the books (John 21:25).
- What was Jesus' first miracle?
- According to John, turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1–11). John presents it as the first of his signs.
- What does "Talitha cumi" mean?
- It is Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke day to day. Mark translates it at once: "Girl, I tell you, get up!" (Mark 5:41). It was said to Jairus' twelve-year-old daughter, whom everyone had given up for dead.