MARK BLOG 3 How I Came To See The Kingdom In Every Miracle

These Weren’t Just Miracles-They Were Glimpses of a World Made New.

Let me now tell you the stories that were told to me—the miracles of Jesus, as I came to understand them…

The miracles of Jesus, as I came to know them, were not mere displays of power to impress the crowds. They were signs and lessons—outbreaks of God’s kingdom in a broken world, moments when heaven touched earth through the Son of Man.

One of the first signs came in Capernaum, where Jesus cast out an unclean spirit in the synagogue (Mark 1:21–28). The people were astonished. He did not teach like the scribes, who leaned on tradition; he taught with authority, and that authority extended even over demons. When I heard this story, I notices that evil recognized him even when people did not. And the evil spirits cried out, calling him “the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24), naming what others could not yet see.

Immediately after, he healed Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever (Mark 1:29–31). He simply took her by the hand—and the fever left her. Simple. Immediate. That night, the whole city pressed in around the door, bringing their sick and possessed. And Jesus healed many. But not all. I noted that carefully. Even then, the mystery of God’s kingdom was at work—mercy poured out, but not according to human demand.

When I recorded the story of the leper who approached Jesus (Mark 1:40–45), it shook me. Lepers were the untouchables of our world, cast out from family, faith, and community. Yet Jesus, moved with compassion, touched him. He was not defiled by the leper’s sickness; instead, the man was made clean. I have heard that some copies of my gospel tell it differently—that Jesus was not moved with compassion, but with anger. If they have written it so, I can only hope they mean he was angry at the brokenness of the world, not at the one who suffered.(1) That would be truer to the story I sought to tell.

In Capernaum again, Jesus healed a paralyzed man lowered through the roof (Mark 2:1–12). Yet before he healed him physically, he forgave his sins. That forgiveness scandalized the scribes: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7). In telling this story, I realized that Jesus’ healing miracles were never merely about the body—they pointed to a deeper healing of the soul. Power not used for self-glory but to reveal the heart of God. In doing so, Jesus was also reshaping the way we saw one another. He broke through the barriers of social, economic, and ethnic divisions, teaching us that every soul—no matter their status or suffering—was in need of restoration. He was not only healing individuals; he was healing a broken way of seeing the world.

Yet even as I wrote it, I did not mean to claim—at least not so simply—that Jesus was declaring himself to be God.  Though it seemed to be apparent as the stories were building that the Father was declaring Him to be. After my time that became a big debate. I knew the Scriptures: prophets and priests, acting in God’s name, had spoken forgiveness before. Nathan said to David, “The Lord has taken away your sin” (2 Samuel 12:13), and the priest would declare one clean after atonement was made (Leviticus 4:20). Jesus spoke with an authority that startled the scribes, yes—but His forgiveness was not the overthrow of God’s place. He bore God’s power because he bore God’s mission: which was to call sinners and give his life a ransom for them.

In the synagogue, Jesus healed a man with a withered hand—even under the watchful, accusatory eyes of the religious leaders (Mark 3:1–6). It was the Sabbath. Healing in this moment was not only an act of mercy, but also of defiance—a deliberate challenge to hearts hardened by legalism. Jesus was revealing that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. It was better to restore a life than to preserve the traditions that had fenced in God’s intention for rest and renewal.

By healing the man, Jesus gave him not only the use of his hand but the dignity to work, to contribute, to belong. It was a reordering of priorities—placing human wholeness over religious rigidity. That act ignited their fury. From that moment, the plot to destroy him began. The very mercy that drew the crowds would be the mercy that led him to the cross.

The stories flooded in:

• The calming of the storm (Mark 4:35–41), where he rebuked the wind and sea like unruly children. “Who then is this,” the disciples marveled, “that even the wind and sea obey him?” Nature bowed before him.
• The Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5:1–20), where an entire legion of demons was cast into a herd of pigs. The man, once naked and mad, sat clothed and in his right mind. Yet the townspeople, seeing this power, begged Jesus to leave. Through this story I show not everyone welcomes deliverance. Some prefer their familiar chains to the unsettling freedom he brings.
• The woman with the hemorrhage (Mark 5:25–34), who touched his garment in secret—and was healed. She believed in secret, but Jesus brought her into the light: “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” Faith, I saw, was not a passive waiting; it was a daring reach.

And intertwined with her story: Jairus’s daughter, dead by the time Jesus arrived. Yet he took her by the hand and said, “Talitha cum”—”Little girl, get up” (Mark 5:41). She rose.

These wonders were glimpses of a world reborn. They were a prescreening for a world we longed for and believed would come.

Later, he fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish (Mark 6:30–44), and again four thousand (Mark 8:1–10). He walked on water (Mark 6:45–52), revealing mastery over the chaotic deep—the sea that the Israelites had always feared as the place of monsters and death. He healed the deaf man with a touch (Mark 7:31–37) and the blind man at Bethsaida, though the healing came in stages (Mark 8:22–26). Unlike other healings, this one was gradual, as if to teach us that sometimes spiritual sight does not come all at once but slowly, with persistence and humility.

I learned, too, that not all could be healed where faith was absent. In his hometown, Nazareth, he “could do no deed of power there” except heal a few sick people (Mark 6:5).(2, 3)

I recorded these miracles to give a true account of how we saw Jesus.  What we knew of Him and His works. These signs, for us, authenticated his message and confirmed that he was the one through whom the kingdom of God was breaking into the world. Sickness fled, demons surrendered, nature obeyed, and even death began to unravel. These were not isolated wonders, but the evidence of something far greater: that the reign of God had come near, and Jesus was its herald and its embodiment.

The miracles astonished me—but even more, they beckoned me. They called me to repentance, to faith, to surrender. That is why I told them.

Not merely to inform, but to transform.

The Kingdom has drawn near. It broke into the world through the hands, the voice, the compassion of Jesus. It breaks still today, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

May it break into your heart as it did into mine.

—Mark

(1) Some manuscripts (notably Codex Bezae) record that Jesus was “moved with anger” (Greek: ὀργισθείς) rather than “moved with compassion” (σπλαγχνισθείς) when healing the leper. See Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 137–140.

(2)Some modern scholars like Bart Ehrman suggest that this shows an early Christian tradition that did not yet see Jesus as omnipotent but rather limited by human unbelief. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 183–185. I do not see that as probable, but felt it should be pointed out.

(3) Others, like Richard Carrier, argue that such miracle stories were crafted later to bolster early Christian claims amid skepticism. Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014, pp. 408–410.