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Praying about Jesus’s miracles: Let’s find someone to blame!

Lynne Baab • Wednesday May 1 2024

Human brains love dichotomies. If this thing is true, then this other thing is wrong or a lie. Human beings also love to assign blame. Something inside us longs to believe that the universe is ordered and logical. Therefore, when things go wrong, someone or something must be at fault.

In John 9, the human love for dichotomies and blame is on full display. Jesus and his disciples have just left the Temple because some of the Jewish leaders started throwing stones at Jesus.

“As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this...

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Praying about Jesus’s miracles: Jesus heals a blind man twice

Lynne Baab • Thursday April 25 2024

When I first encountered the story of Jesus healing a man twice at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26), it seemed crazy. I was 20, I’d been a committed Christian for a year, and I felt that things related to faith should be clear and straightforward. Why would Jesus have to heal a blind man twice? If he was there at creation (John 1:3), he surely knows how eyes work. If he sustains the creation and all things hold together in him (Colossians 1:17), he surely knows how to heal eyes the first time.

This is the story where Jesus puts saliva on the man’s...

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Praying about Jesus’s miracles: Jesus heals a blind man

Lynne Baab • Wednesday April 17 2024

Early in his ministry, Jesus reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue on the Sabbath. After he rolls up the scroll and sits back down, he says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). One component of the prophecy in Isaiah is “recovery of sight to the blind” (Luke 4:18). In his ministry, as recounted in all four gospels, Jesus heals a good number of people who are physically blind.

Jesus often juxtaposes physical healing of blindness with direct or indirect statements about spiritual blindness. Jesus’ concern with spiritual blindness is a strong call...

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Praying about Jesus’s miracles: Jesus touches and heals a man with leprosy

Lynne Baab • Wednesday April 10 2024

At age 20, I encountered for the first time the miracle of Jesus touching and healing a man with leprosy in Mark 1:40-45. Ever since then, I have marveled at the intimacy and radicality of Jesus’s touch. (Yes, I just learned that “radicality” is a word. I wanted to use “radicalness,” but I couldn’t find that word online. I think radicality will be my new favorite word. So much of Jesus’s ministry seems to me to be radical, using this definition: change or action relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something.)

Last week, while I was pondering how to write this...

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