In our sermon series in the book of Acts, we recently read the episode where Peter and John perform their first miracle of healing a man who was lame from birth. Luke, the writer of Acts, is giving us a historical account. According to scripture and to what the church has believed for a long time, this really happened. But the more familiar we become with the Bible, the more we realize that there is far more happening than just relaying facts. 

In his sermon where he explains the miracle, Peter says, “Heaven must receive [Jesus] until the time comes for God to restore everything” (Acts 3:21). Peter is echoing the promise that there is still more to come—there is the restoring of everything. What is a miracle then? It is a window into the future; a future marked by everything put right.

In the New Testament, the miracles—whether they’re performed by Jesus or by the Apostles—are never simply displays of power. If a miracle is just about displaying power why not write a message in the clouds with your finger? Why not fly loops over people’s heads? That would have impressed people! There are a lot of things that Peter and John could have done if the goal was just to authenticate the gospel. So why is it that the biblical miracles are always aimed at alleviating pain and suffering? Because they are a window into a future that is free of suffering. The miracle points to the day at the end of history when Jesus returns to repair all things. No more not seeing, no more not walking, no more death and tears, the Bible says. Jesus come quickly!

To restore means to put something back to its original condition. If you restore an old car, it means you put it back to the way it was originally. Does that mean that the world was once free of suffering and tears? Absolutely. And we’re given a picture of what that looked like in the first two chapters of the Bible where we read about the God who created the world originally as a paradise free of brokenness of any kind. And we’re told the world would be that way right now if humans had continued to serve God and glory in our relationship with God. But they didn’t—and we don’t. When we turned away from God everything fell apart. But in the miracles we are being told that things will not always be this way. That’s why the miracles take the form they do in bringing healing into the world. And they also tell us that God is no more pleased with the reality of a sinful world than we are. So God heals the man who was lame as a kind of foretaste of what God intends to do with the whole world.

In Isaac Watts’s beloved hymn, O for a Thousand Tongues, he writes:

Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb,
Your loosened tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Savior come;
And leap, ye lame, for joy. 

The Bible says that in the end everything and everyone who are under Christ’s wing will, like a man who was lame, rise up and leap for joy. What tremendous joy and hope that gives us as we face our present sufferings.