Read with Me
Exodus 4:6-8 (HCSB)
In addition the LORD said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, his hand was diseased, white as snow. Then He said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” He put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, it had again become like the rest of his skin. “If they will not believe you and will not respond to the evidence of the first sign, they may believe the evidence of the second sign.
Listen with Me
God gave Moses three miraculous signs to demonstrate to the elders of Israel that He really had spoken to him, and that he really was the chosen deliverer.
The second sign was different than the first. The first sign, Moses’ staff turning into a snake, was done outside himself. But this second sign involved his own body. He was commanded to put his hand inside a fold of his cloak. And when he pulled it out again, it was covered with leprosy, the skin white and flaky, and the flesh shriveled away.
But the restoration was accomplished just as quickly and easily. All he had to do was to put his hand back into the fold of his cloak for a second, and when he pulled it back out, it was completely restored, as whole and as healthy it had been before.
Some might be tempted to put this down to a cheap magic trick, just as Pharaoh did the changing of his staff into a serpent (Exodus 7:10-12). But leprosy was a well-known and dreaded disease in those days, and it was incurable by any known methods. When Moses pulled his leprous hand from the fold of his cloak, the vast majority of the people would pull far back out of fear of being exposed to the disease. That would be frightening, but it alone would not be considered miraculous. Instead, it would be the immediate and complete healing of the leprosy that would move them to believe.
Here, and in many other places, including in John’s gospel, miracles like these are not called miracles, but “signs”. And as signs, the miracles point, not to the individual performing the miracle, but beyond him to the greater reality that God was working through him. Moses’ assignment was not to persuade Pharaoh or the Israelite elders that he was a mighty worker of miracles. It was to point them beyond Moses straight to God, so that they would see the evidence and know that God Himself was now personally involved in the plight of His people and in their redemption.
Pray with Me
Father, it is easy to focus on the miracles themselves and to lose touch with what they were designed to do. Even in the days of Elijah and Elisha, and even in the days of Jesus Himself, Your purpose for the miracles was to point beyond the person doing the miracles to a deeper reality – the fact that You truly exist, and that You are actively moving Your plan for redemption forward. Help me, Lord, to never seek a miracle for its own sake, or for my own glory. Help me always to seek miracles so that others can clearly see past me, and past the miracle itself, to You. Amen.