Miracles.

A Sermon for the Sunday after Ascension

June 1, 2025 at Holy Communion

Daniel 7:13-14, Mark 16:14-20

“To the son of man was given dominion and glory and a kingdom” (Daniel 7:14). In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ☩ Amen.

The end of today’s Gospel reading is perplexing. Jesus, immediately before he ascends into heaven, tells his disciples that “these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:17–18).

This is perplexing because, I don’t know about you, but my faith doesn’t have much to do with drinking deadly poisons. We’ll talk in a second about what to make of this list of miracles. But in the background the passage is also perplexing because it probably wasn’t in the original version of the Gospel of Mark. Important early manuscripts don’t contain the last section of Mark chapter 16; instead, the gospel ends with the women at the empty tomb.

But this doesn’t need to concern us. Our Bibles aren’t wrong for including the longer ending of Mark. The Bible is a document of the church, and we should feel confident receiving it as holy scripture because our ancestors have passed it down to us in this form.

And, in fact, the version of Mark 16 that comes down to us reflects a retrospective view on the meaning of Christ’s ascension. Jesus’ ascends to the throne of glory, and he confers on his apostles, as his representatives below, the authority to carry on his work of healing the world by the power of God.

But more concretely, the long ending of Mark is retrospective because Jesus’ words here seem clearly to have been informed by what happens in the history of the first Christians, as recorded in the Book of Acts. We have been reading Acts as the first lesson all Easter Season. There, we read about the apostles casting out demons (Acts 8:7, 16:16–18, 19:13–17), speaking in new tongues on the day of Pentecost (ch. 2), picking up deadly serpents unhurt as Paul once did while shipwrecked in the Mediterranean (28:1–6), and healing the sick with a touch (3:1–11, 9:32–35, 9:36–43, 14:8–10). Jesus, before he ascends, prophesies and commands that his apostles do exactly what we see them doing in the first years of the church’s life.

But how about us? Does Jesus expect us to perform miracles?

Miracles in the non-metaphorical sense—that is, actually, literally healing the sick with a touch or raising the dead—are not part of our ordinary experience as Christians. I always feel bad for Christians who have got into circles which tell them that these sorts of events are expected and normal. Some Christians feel a terrible pressure to have out-of-the-ordinary spiritual experiences on a regular basis, and all it makes them is neurotic, not more likely to perform miracles.

On the other hand, it would also be a mistake to discount all miracle stories. The lives of the saints, ancient and modern, are full of them, and we are justified in believing them just as we believe the similar stories recorded in the Bible. It is the same God, working through the same people of God, then and now.

The circumstances in which God pours out special grace seem to be, well, special. It is in extraordinary circumstances, often working through extraordinary people, that bona fide miracles seem to be done. Our Gospel reading even hints at this: Jesus commands that the gospel be preached “to the whole creation” (v 15), and says that “these signs will accompany” the spread of that gospel (v 17, 20). To this day, miracles are regularly reported from the frontiers of missionary activity. God confirms his gospel with signs.

But then there are metaphorical miracles—or, perhaps better, true miracles performed by ordinary means. The Christian church is and always has been a body which casts out demons by providing refuge, counsel, forgiveness, and support for a new start to those distressed in mind. The church speaks year by year in new tongues, and has always been the centre of translation and intercultural contact work. The history of healthcare is the history of compassionate Christian visionaries opening up clinics and hospitals. Just because these miracles are performed slowly, and by the sweat on Christian brows, does not mean that they were accomplished by anything but the finger of God.

Today’s readings give us the theological background for why this is so. In the Book of Daniel, we are shown a vision of “one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him” (Daniel 7:13). When Jesus called himself the “Son of Man” in the Gospels, he took the title from the Book of Daniel, which was already well-understood as a prophecy about the Messiah. So on one level our reading from Daniel is a straightforward prophecy about the Ascension of Jesus: he is the “son of man” presented before the Almighty and enthroned as sovereign of the universe. Yet still the ambiguity of the term “son of man” is intriguing. The ordinary way to take it would be to say that “a son of man” simply means “a human being.” A human being is presented before the Almighty and enthroned.

And that’s where the vision is wonderful: a human being sits on the throne of heaven. God the Word unites humanity to himself in his incarnation, and so unites humanity to the royal splendor of eternity in his ascension. Jesus assumes our humanity; we assume his divinity and regal glory. The one on the throne on high is “one like a son of man;” he’s the Human Person, the Second Adam, Jesus the Everyman and every man Jesus.

The throne in heaven is yours: you are presented before the Ancient of Days to take your seat, because in Christ you are the Prince of Heaven, the Son of the Father, the Word which proceeds out of his mouth.

And so, while here below, your work is also the work of Christ. That’s the point about the miracles. God will accomplish everything through his body the church which he accomplished in his body of flesh. He will and does heal the sick. He will and does cast out demons. Every part of his work is accomplished through us. We have a kingdom in heaven which we administer on earth.