Quick Summary:

What are we to make of this story, and other miracle stories like it in the gospels? Are they to be taken as factual, historical occurrences in which the laws of nature as we know them are suspended? Or are they first and foremost theological stories designed to portray theological truths in existential clothing? Are these stories emblematic parables pointing to the fullness of God’s presence in Jesus?

One thing is certain; which ever way we come down on the question of miracles, today’s story reveals to us a God who, in Jesus, longs to be present to us in the most desperate, helpless, hopeless moments of our lives, working to bring joy out of sorrow and life out of death.