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What do you want me to do for you? I want to see again. And see I can see. If you didn't grow up Christian, then maybe you see Jesus as just like a wise teacher or a guru. But let me tell you, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible describes him as a man who didn't just talk about God, but literally grabbed the laws of physics and shattered them. We're talking about one person who walked on top of a raging sea during a hurricane. He commanded demons that were so violent that he could snap iron chains, and he looked at a corpse that had been rotting in a tomb for four days and told it to walk out. He turned water into wine, reattached a severed ear in the middle of a street brawl. And today we're breaking down every single miracle that Jesus performed. Well, not every miracle, but a lot of them. The nature miracles, the healings, the exorcisms, and all the resurrections. So if you are interested in the actual life of Jesus specifically regarding his miraculous works, well, this is the episode for you. So sit back, relax, and welcome to Religion Camp. What's up, people? And welcome back to Religion Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent, where every single week, we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from all the religions from all time, forever. Yes, this is the place where I go, where I try to understand what everybody on this big, beautiful, green Earth believes. I don't like when they call it the blue planet. I get that it's blue, but it's really green, right? Is it? Yeah, look around. It's green. I don't live in space. I heard the blue is. The sky is blue because of the water. People say that, but the ground is green because the Earth is green. And I live on the green stuff. Anyway, this is neither here nor there, all right? I just want to know what everybody on this planet believes. All right? That's kind of my goal. I feel like one. It makes me a better human being. I'm able to relate to my fellow, you know, humans on this planet in a better way because I understand how their life is organized. If they're a practicing religious person, I understand the rules and sort of the rituals that go into their. Their everyday existence. And, you know, even if someone's not religious, just the framing of the culture they grew up in is imbued with some of that religiosity that has shaped them in some way, shape, or form, and it makes me just a better friend. Furthermore, I also take all the good stuff from every religion that I read and I try to apply it to my own life, whether that's, you know, fasting during Ramadan or meditation from, you know, Hinduism or Buddhism or even like intense scriptural sort of reading from like the Jewish tradition. This is the type of stuff that, you know, I try to apply to my own life. And I think we can learn from every religion that's existed for, know, more than 100 years. It's kind of my cut off. Especially Orthodox. All right, maybe not especially orthodox. If you guys don't know. This is my good pal Christos Papadopados. What's going on, everybody? Yeah, that you can chime in all you want, no problem at all. Okay, you weren't ready for me to say that. I was not. Well, we're turn over a new leaf because today we're talking about Jesus Christ. Yes, it's been a while since we've done Jesus episode. I'll be honest, I get so transfixed on learning the stuff I don't know that I'm jumping into Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism that sometimes I neglect my own religion, which is Catholicism, you know, and Christus, you're also Catholic. I'm worth. All right, Christians, we'll have time for this. Okay, yeah, I got you on the back end. You thought I was going to just let that slide? You're out of your mind. All right, today we're talking about the miracles of Jesus and not all the miracles because that would probably be too long of a video. So if you guys enjoyed this one, then maybe I'll do a follow up. But if you didn't grow up Catholic or Christian or Orthodox, well then you probably don't. Maybe you don't know all of the intense religious miracles that Jesus performed. As a matter of fact, if you grew up Muslim, you actually do know some of the miracles that Jesus performed. And you guys have miracles that we don't have. Like Jesus turning a clay bird into a real bird that's in the Quran. Isn't that wild? They got like additional sequels to the Jesus that we know and love. It's all in the Quran. Kind of cool. But today we're only talking about specifically the gospels. Yes, we're talking about the Christian Bible and the miracles that Jesus had done. Now it's important to frame this in the time and the context that Jesus was living in. You know, Jewish Judea. And to the Jewish people living there, miracles aren't just like a cool thing that God does. They are credentials. That is your, you know, Your. Your Harvard University, you know, like that. That is your. Like your stamp that validates that you are actually someone coming from God or God himself, and it proves that you have authority over the created world. So the Greek word often used in the gospel is the word Simeon. Am I right? Pretty close. I mean, how would you say it? Semion. That's what I said. Okay. And anyway, that means sign. And this is basically a sign that points to something. So when Jesus performs miracles, he's not showing off. It is a sign. He's pointing to a reality that the kingdom of God has arrived on earth. And chronologically, it all starts in a village called Cana. Now, if you've ever been to a Catholic wedding, this is the one they always bring up. It's very funny. Every Catholic wedding is just like, all right, what readings do you want? And they always pick the wedding at Cana. One, because the wedding, and two, because it's permission slip to get hammered. That's why Catholics love to drink. And they'll bring this up and they're like, yeah, the wedding of Cana, Jesus was drinking. You know, was he drinking? Well, we're gonna get to that one also. But it's. It's interesting. So the. So basically, In John chapter 2, Jesus is at a wedding in Cana, all right? And in that culture, running out of wine isn't just embarrassing. It's like a. It's a social catastrophe. And it could actually, even in the time we have some documentation that it could lead to, like, a lawsuit or, like, shame for the family. When guests are coming to the wedding and they're bringing, like, wedding gifts, they're essentially, like, paying forward or, like, paying up front for the hospitality that they're expecting to receive. So you bring a bunch of, like, gold and frankincense to a wedding, and then they don't have any food or wine. It's like, yo, I need my gift back. Why did I bring you all this? Like, why am I showing up to this wedding if you're not going to treat me with hospitality? It's a sign of disrespect. And even sometimes in some weddings could result in litigation. Wow. Now, I don't want to. It's a kind of Jewish. But it is. It's a custom of the time. All right. It's a different. It's a different time. Okay, Cutting that. No, you bring a gift and you're like, what? I can't give me. Give it back. Is that crazy? It's just being thrifty. Yeah, it's it's being a little. It's. It's. It's demanding respect, okay? Now, if the host ran out of wine, it was like a. It was an issue, and they were. They were failing to fulfill their end of the bargain, okay? And so at the wedding at Cana, the wine runs dry, and Jesus's mother, Mary, asks him to help. Now, what's interesting is that Jesus initially has this response. He says, Jesus literally goes to Jesus, her son, and is like, hey, the wine's all. The wine's gone. Like, literally hits her with a Jack Sparrow. She's like, there's no more rum. It's called wild, right? And Jesus says this, woman, why have you involved me? My hour has yet to come. Isn't that wild? Which, to my understanding, the translation here sounds harsh in English. Like woman, which is funny because I will call my wife woman because I know the translation. So it's kind of just like a fun little inside joke. But, like, woman in the time is like a sign of respect. It's like a. A dignified term. It's like. Like the way we would say, like, man. Like, good to see you, man. You do it as a joke, though. Well, because I know that the. You know, it's sort of anachronistic to use in the modern day, but, like, I'll call my wife woman. I'll be like, here you go, woman. As a joke. As a joke. But I also know the translation, which is kind of why I do it, because I remember sitting with her at mass, and I was like, I'm gonna start calling you woman. I mean, Jesus called his mom one. So Jesus says, woman, why have you involved me? My hour is yet to come. And Mary, unfazed, simply tells the servants, do whatever he tells you. Jesus then directs them to fill six stone water jars with water. Now, these aren't little pictures. They are massive ceremonial water Jars holding, like, 20 to 30 gallons of water each. And Jesus doesn't touch the jars. He doesn't say, like, a magic spell. He just wills the universe to change. So the servants draw out the wine and they take it to the master of the banquets. And after one sip, the master is shocked. He pulls the bridegroom aside and says, everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink. But you have saved the best until now. So this is another interesting thing with these weddings. So you have the best wine up top, and everyone drinks that. And then at the end, you give out the cheaper wine because People are already a little boozed up and they're not going to be, as, you know, they're not going to be as acutely aware as to what kind of wine they're drinking. I feel like it's the opposite now. What do you mean? The wine that they just have sitting on the table is always the cheaper one at a wedding. Yeah, I don't know. I don't even go to weddings with wine on the table. Just an open bar. But, like, you do a cocktail hour where everyone gets nice cocktails at the end of the night, they're just like, hey, let's just do vodka soda shots. Like, give me the. Well, you know, so it's kind of the same, but this is very significant because it's the best possible wine that they've ever tasted. And they're like, you're doing this at the end. No one ever does that. So the master had no idea who was actually responsible to him. The bridegroom just pulled off like a crazy wedding move that no one in the village's history had ever done. But the servants knew, Mary knew, and the disciples knew, because John tells us this was the moment that they actually really started to believe that, you know, Jesus Christ, you know, Yeshua Ben Joseph was actually. Was actually Lord, was actually God himself. And the text closes the chapter by saying, Jesus revealed glory and his disciples believed in him. Now this wedding party became the launching pad for everything that comes next. So now we're going to jump to the Sea of Galilee. This is a massive lake known for its sudden, violent storms. Because of the surrounding geography, there are two major miracles here involving water. First is in Mark 4, Jesus and the disciples are in the middle of a storm. But instead of worrying, Jesus is just kind of posted up, chilling in the back. And these disciples, I mean, they're professional fishermen. That's like their job. They know the water and they're terrified. They're convinced that they're going to die. They wake Jesus up screaming, and he stands up and speaks to the wind and the waves as if he's talking to like, like a. A li. A living thing. And he says, peace, be still. And instantly the storm is calm. The text says that the disciples were terrified, not of the storm, but of Jesus. They asked, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him. Nobody answers. And the Gospel just leaves the question sort of hanging in the air because that's kind of the whole point. These men spent every single day with Jesus for months at this point, and they still didn't fully Comprehend who they were with or who was sharing the boat with them. And this moment of the sea going still is an answer in and of itself, right? Like, I wonder, I mean, this is just kind of like my theory, but like, I wonder if, like, you see like water turning into wine. If it's like, oh, maybe there was like a trick, maybe there's some type of practical explanation, you know, like, maybe they brought out wine from the back and they swapped it and Jesus coordinated this whole thing. Like, maybe there's an explanation. But then they see this. They see this miracle in Galilee, and they say, we saw with our own eyes that there was a storm that was going to kill us. And then all of a sudden it stopped. And now it's undeniable. And then later, in Matthew 14, we see what happens next. The disciples are in the boat alone, fighting the wind at three in the morning when they look out and see a figure walking on top of the water. And they think that they're seeing like a ghost. And they start screaming. But it's not a ghost. It's Jesus Christ. Jesus identifies himself and Peter in a moment of insanity or faith or a mixture of the both asks to walk with Jesus. He acts, he asks him to come out. And for a few moments, this human being defies gravity and is walking on water to meet Jesus. This was a direct callback to the Old Testament where Job says God treads on the waves of the sea. Jesus was showing them exactly who he was and invoking an Old Testament passage. But Peter only makes it a few steps. The wind hits him and he looks down. And the second he focuses on the storm instead of Jesus, he starts to sink. And he. He yells out, lord, save me. And Jesus immediately reaches out, grabs his hand and pulls him up. The two of them walk back to the boat together. And the moment they step in, the wind dies down. The disciples in the boat drop to their knees and they say, truly, you are the Son of God. It's the first time in Matthew's gospel that they call him that out loud. And it's really interesting how there's so much invocation of the Old Testament that Christ is truly, you know, throughout his actions and his words, he's. He's sort of fulfilling so many of the promises in the Old Testament. Now, these miracles we've talked about so far, walking on water, turning water into wine, you know, calming the seas, they're cool, you know, like they're miraculous say the least. But the bulk of Jesus's miracles were healing. And I think A lot of people missed that. It was like a lot of exorcisms and a lot of healing. And it's funny today because a lot of people look at Christianity and, like, they look at, like, the exorcist or all this stuff out of the catalogue, Catholic Church surrounding exorcisms. But, I mean, that was a ton of Jesus's miracles. And I think people look at exorcisms like, oh, that doesn't really happen anymore. That's B.S. da, da, da. Look at the life of Jesus. He's performing exorcisms all the time, but he's also performing these healings just on people and, like, their wounds. So in the ancient world, if you were sick, especially with skin diseases like leprosy, you were seen as unclean. If you touched a leper, you didn't make the leper feel better. You. The leper made you sick. And because it was so contagious and so deadly, and you could just be banned from the temple and from the society. So lepers were often sent to go live in their own little leper colonies, just kind of cast away to die because they didn't want to make everyone else sick. However, in Matthew 8, a leper approaches Jesus. Now, for the record, can you fact check me on this? If you don't know what leprosy is, it is an illness or a disease that basically affects your nerves from experiencing pain. And my understanding is that if you have leprosy, you'll basically go your whole life and, like, get injuries and wounds and you won't know that you're injured. And these things then fester, and then they turn into worse and worse, you know, illnesses. And then, you know, you eventually die. And it's extremely contagious. Person to person. Can you fact check me on that? It's a chronic infectious disease caused by bacteria called something I can't pronounce. And disease affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, and eyes. Oh, interesting. And it's extremely deadly, I presume, and I'll check. Extremely contagious. I mean, that much, I think is implicit. Now, this guy is supposed to be yelling unclean to warn people to, you know, you know, go away. But instead, he falls before Jesus, and Jesus does the unthinkable. Before he heals him, he reaches out his hand and touches the man and says, be clean. And instead of the sickness infecting Jesus, Jesus holiness infected the man, and the leprosy disappeared on the spot. And Jesus then tells him to keep quiet about it and go show himself to the priest. Because under the law of Moses, a priest could officially declare a leper clean and then allow him back into society. And that detail is very important because Jesus wasn't just healing his skin. He was literally giving him his entire life back. His family, his children, his job, his ability to walk into the temple, his relationship with God without people, you know, being terrified and running away. But that's not the only healing miracle that Jesus performed. In Mark, chapter two, Jesus is. Jesus is in a house in Capernaum, and it's so packed that nobody can get in. However, four guys are carrying their paralyzed friend on like a mat to come witness this acclaimed messiah. But there's an issue. They can't get into the door because it's so packed. So what do they do? They climb onto the roof and they literally start digging through the clay molding and they lower their friend right down in front of Jesus, which, let me just say, good friends. I mean, those are the boys, you know what I mean? Being like, yo, our. Our boy is sick, he's paralyzed, and there's a guy that can help him, or we're going to do everything we can to get in front of him. I mean, shout out to them. Jesus sees their faith, and he says, son, your sins are forgiven. Now, obviously, this is a big taboo, considering the authorities at the time believed Jesus was nothing more than just like a regular guy. The religious leaders who were present at the house began to freak out and question his authority by saying, who can forgive sins but God alone? So Jesus then drops a bomb, he says, which is easier to say your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up and walk. And then the man who had been paralyzed stands up, picks up the mat that he was laying on, and then walks out of the house in front of everyone. Mark says that the crowd was so stunned, they started saying, we have never seen anything like this. Now, interestingly, directly after this happens, Jesus decides to leave the city and go to the Sea of Galilee to continue preaching. But before leaving the city, he passes by the tax collectors, and he sees the tax collectors standing at, like, their stand, where he sees a boy named Levi, AKA Matthew. And Jesus says to him, follow me. And Levi basically stands up, leaves his work, and becomes one of the most famous authors from the Gospel. And that is Matthew. Hey, guys, we're gonna take a break really quick because I want to talk to you about gld. This is an awesome new company that we're working with that I'm actually wearing right now. Now, here's the thing. You probably have the basics right. You always have, like the shoes your go to shoes you always wear. You always got the jeans you always wear. You got that one black tee that makes your biceps pop. You know, we all got like the one fit that we feel nice in, but most dudes are missing the final piece. Talking about the Jesus piece. I'm talking about the jewelry that brings the whole fit together. Yes. And that is where GLD comes from. I actually got this crucifix right here. And honestly, even just getting it, you know, sometimes, like when you work with some companies, you're like, all right, I really hope the product is good. This one is. I. I wear it all the time. This is actually like the new crucifix. I lost my last one at a bathhouse. Literally at a sauna. I lost my crucifix, which is maybe God's way of telling me something. But I got a new one from GLD and I've been rocking it non stop. My wife likes it and it's got like a nice weight to it. The details actually look better in person. The clasp is like super solid. It doesn't feel like something you bought, like in Times Square from a random dude. It doesn't feel like something you ordered from, you know, some sketchy website on temu. Like, this is the real simple, clean crucifix. And they've got a bunch of stuff. It's not just religious. Like, I throw it on and it just makes you feel like I have like an actual outfit. I just, it makes me feel good. 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For a limited time, the listeners of this program, Camp Gagnon, Religion Camp, History Camp, and the entire Camp Universe, you're getting a crazy deal. If you use the Code Camp C A M P when you check out, you're gonna get 40% off your entire order at GLD. That's 40% off your whole order with the Code Camp at checkout@gld.com and after you purchase, they're going to ask where you heard about gld. Tell them you heard about them from, you know, the good folks here at the campsite Mark and Christo sent you. And whenever you do that, it really helps, you know, support the show. And thank you so much to gld and thank you to you for tuning in. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because there is a brand that we're working with that I am so stoked on. Truly, one of my favorite products and it's called Ultra. All right. And Ultra just dropped something that is going to change the game. It's already changed my life. So the way that I would think about this is whenever I'm tired and I'm sleepy and I'm not sleeping well, I am a worse person. Like, I'll literally, I'll sleep bad three days in a row and everything starts to break down. I make worse decisions. I'm less good on stage. I feel like I'm less good on the pod. Like, I eat poorly, I don't work out as much. And as I get older, I'm realizing more and more sleep is like the only thing that really matters. If I sleep well, I'm in a better mood, I'm a better husband, I'm a better dad, I work out better, I feel better. I mean, everything stems from sleep. Here's the thing, you take like melatonin gummies or something. They're dosed with so much melatonin, it actually will make your sleep worse. Sometimes you'll be too sleepy to wake up. You get like an over the counter sleep med. Like, yeah, that's gonna completely nuke your sleep. And you don't wanna just be dependent on a heavy duty medication just to be able to sleep like a normal. And that is why I want to talk to you guys about Ultra's new sleep pouches. This is actually genius. I mean, you probably, I don't know if you saw. Joe Rogan just recently shouted them out on his podcast just organically. And the idea with Ultra is fascinating. Now everyone knows, you know, Ultra has pouches for energy. You know, they are basically have the same active ingredient you'll find in like caffeine. And it's A nicotine free boost that just makes you feel good now. It's awesome. And I've been taking the Ultra pouches for a while. This is the new blue raspberry flavor that I love, and I just take it throughout the day. It helps me cut back on my nicotine and I just feel good. It gives you, like, a little boost. But this is where they flipped it. They made a pouch for winding down. This is one that I put in right before I go to sleep. Like, I'm sitting on the couch, my wife watching a show, and I want to pop something in. I'll pop in the ultra sleep pouch. This is the honey lemon flavor. It tastes amazing, and it's just, you know, it's nice to do something right now. Here's the thing. I don't wake up. Like, I'm exhausted. I'm not popping, like, nicotine or caffeine right before I go to sleep. This actually has an ingredient stack that makes sense. It has 1 milligram of melatonin, which is a much more reasonable dose. You don't have to, like, all of a sudden hit like 10 milligrams or something. It also has L Theanine, which helps calm the racing thoughts. It's like, basically it just relaxes your central nervous system and it gives you that thing of, like, instead of late night rumination, you're like, I'm just gonna go to sleep. It also has magnesium, which you should already be taking to help go to sleep. It also has chamomile, passion flower, and lemon balm extracts to actually help you sleep better and sleep longer and feel more recovered. And it's not just one ingredient trying to do everything. It's a full nighttime stack rate in one can. They're super easy. I literally just pop it in my lip before bed, like 10, 20 minutes, and I am ready to go to sleep immediately. And for me, the big thing is that I want to sleep better without feeling wrecked the next day. And that is what is so great about Ultra. So with these sleep pouches, I'm getting deeper sleep. Literally, my whoop is showing me that I'm getting better sleep. I'm not groggy when I wake up. And honestly, track it with your own whoop or like your aura ring or whatever, because this is the exact kind of thing you want to test. Ultra sleep pouches deliver better, deeper sleep with properly dosed natural ingredients. And the new customers can use the code Camp C A M p to take 15% off when they go to takeultra.com that's take ultra.com for 15% off with the code. I'm telling you, everyone is going to be using these Ultra Sleep pouches as well as all the other Ultra products. And I'm telling you, I'm putting you guys on game before anyone else. And after your purchase, tell them that you heard about them from the good folks over here at camp. Now let's get back to the show. Now this is just an interesting little point to kind of highlight when looking at the ministry of Jesus, because Jesus asking Matthew to follow him caused a massive controversy in the ancient world. Tax collectors were basically like the worst people. They were just professional sinners, you could think, right? Like, they were typically, you know, Jewish men from the town working for the Roman authorities. And they were viewed as traitors to their nation, to their, you know, fellow Jewish people. And they were, you know, seen as thieves who were overcharging their neighbors. And oftentimes tax collectors would go and be like, hey, your taxes, like, you know, 100 bucks. But really their taxes were 50 bucks and they were skimming some extra. But because they had the authority of, of Rome, you know, they were able to, you know, operate with impunity. And so this is the opposite of someone that you would want to pick for a religious movement. But, you know, Jesus sees the good even in the people that we see as the most, you know, abhorrent, you know, detestable occupations on in society. Now at this point, the entire city is pretty much aware that Jesus is performing these miracles. And we can see pretty clearly that he knows how to draw a crowd. But one person in crowd is about to have their life changed forever. The Gospel tells a story of a synagogue leader named Gyrus, whose daughter is dying. So he reaches out to Jesus for help. And as Jesus is walking to the synagogue, a massive crowd is following him. And inside that crowd is a woman that the text describes as being sick for 12 years. She's broke. I mean, she has no money because likely she spent it, you know, on doctors or even worse, under Jewish law. Her condition made her unclean. So if she touches anyone, she defiles them. And, you know, she probably wasn't even supposed to be in that crowd in general, right? So despite this, the woman stops and thinks, if I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed. So she fights through the mob and reaches out and brushes the hem of Jesus's robe, and immediately her pain stops. But then Jesus stops dead in his tracks and asks, who touched me? His disciples look at him like he's crazy. They're like, you know, Jesus, it's a mosh pit. Like, everyone's touching you. But Jesus knows the difference between a shove and a touch of faith. And the woman, terrified that she's about to get, like, you know, beaten for defiling the most holy man in the area, falls down and confesses everything. But instead of yelling at her, Jesus calls her daughter. The only time in the entire Bible that he uses that specific term for a woman. He says, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace. I mean, here's a woman who has gone her entire life being an outcast. But by calling her daughter, Jesus is specifically welcoming her into his family. He's saying, you're not an outcast. You are actually a part of my community or part of my circle. And we'll come back to Gyrus in a second, and his daughter, because that story isn't actually over yet. But it's interesting. I think there's actually a few more references to this, but specifically, like, touching the cloth, they're touching the clothing that Jesus is wearing as having some type of, you know, transmuting some type of miraculous power and that with faith as well as, you know, the act of showcasing that faith through your behavior that this woman was healed. Which oftentimes is why Catholics will have relics in the church that we see very holy people or Christ himself. And the things that Christ has touched with our faith as well as our works, as it says in the Book of James, faith and works together will be combined and actually have healing properties and sort of miraculous components to them. He's got the magic touch. Yes, exactly. Is there. Do you guys have relics in Orthodox? Oh, yeah. All sorts of relics. Right? Icons, Relics galore all the time. Yeah. I kind of see we're not so different, you and I. Now, one of the most famous miracles that Jesus performed is that he heals the blind all the time. There's a wild instance in Mark, chapter eight in Bethsaida where he. The healing actually happens in stages. So it sounds a little wild, but Jesus basically will spit onto the man's eyes and then touches him. But when he asks if the man can see, the guy blinks and says, I see people, but they look like trees walking around. So then Jesus touches his eyes a second time, and then his vision snaps into perfect focus. Jesus sends him straight home and then tells him not to even go back to the village, probably to keep crowds from swarming around. And what's interesting about this miracle is it's one of the only two Stage miracles in the Bible, it's supposed to reflect the fact that God's work is sometimes gradual and not instantaneous and that you shouldn't give up hope, that if you're dealing with something in your own personal life or even an illness, that these things can happen in steps. And that it's all of a sudden not just like, well, I prayed for something and it didn't happen. So it's bs. It's like, no, these things can happen in stages. But. But the most controversial healing of the blind miracle is in John chapter nine. There's a man who's been blind since birth. And the disciples ask a very theological question. They say, who sinned? This man or his parents? That he was born blind. Now notice the implication here. It sounds like, you know, it sounds like they're implying that the man was punished for some type of sin, either his own sin or the sin of his parents. But Jesus rejects this premise altogether. He says it happened so the work of God may be displayed in him. Then Jesus does something kind of weird. He spits on the ground and then makes mud out of the saliva. And then he puts it onto the man's eyes. He then tells him to go wash in the pool of siloam. And when the man comes back, he can see. And what's interesting is that the pool is actually still there to this day. Pretty wild right now. This obviously causes a massive investigation. You have a blind guy that can now see. He's been blind the entire time and now he's good. So the Pharisees start interrogating the guy and his parents and then they go back to the guy and the Pharisees, for the record, I don't have like the technical definition, but they are sort of like the scrupulous law following religious people of the time. And they're sort of like the religious authority. They're very, they're very by the book. And they're trying to uphold the old Jewish law and the tradition of the area. And so they're constantly berating and chastising Jesus. I don't know if you have a more specific definition. Strict observance of Jewish law, emphasis on ritual purity, belief in resurrection and the afterlife. So anytime they see Jesus doing miracles, the Pharisees are always on him being like, all right, what's really going on here? So this is what's wild. The formerly blind guy actually starts getting defensive with the religious elite, saying, nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. So it's kind of wild. Like, the man starts kind of, like, back talking, and it's so, like, severe, direct that the Pharisees actually throw him out of the synagogue and they excommunicate him right on the spot. He loses his community. But Jesus immediately found him and took him in. I mean, pretty wild that just by him being like, look, this guy cured me. What do you want me to say? Like, no one. This has never happened before in history. If this guy can actually cure blind people, he must be from God. I don't know what you want me to do. And the Pharisees said, out. Now let's dive into some of the good stuff. Like I was mentioning earlier, exorcisms. The Bible presents the world as a place that's filled with spiritual warfare. You know, you have forces of evil constantly, you know, presenting themselves in our regular reality. When Jesus shows up, the demons usually react with some type of fear. The most famous encounter is the Jerusine demoniac. And almost immediately, a man living in the tombs runs out to meet him, and the guy is in bad shape. The text says that people had tried to chain him up, but he snapped the chains apart and was running around naked, screaming and slicing himself with stones. But when he sees Jesus, a demon speaks through him and says, what do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God, in God's name, don't torture me. Then Jesus asks for his name, but the demon doesn't reply with a single name. He says, my name is Legion, for we are many. Now, an interesting connection here, the biblical scholars have looked at, is that the Roman Legion, when you're talking about, like, legions of soldiers, the Roman Legion is a unit or an amount of soldiers, and that's about 6,000. So whether there were literally 6,000 demons or just one guy speaking on behalf of all the demons, the point is clear. Like, the man is a walking tower of evil. And even if you get rid of one demon, there might be another one right there. Get ready to, you know, go back in. Now, according to Luke's version of the story, the demons beg not to be sent to a place that they call the abyss, which is what we assume is like hell or some type of, like, you know, like spiritual prison for demons or something. But interestingly, Mark's version says that they begged not to be sent out of the country. However, in both stories, the demon asks for an alternative to be sent into a nearby herd of pigs. And oddly enough, Jesus grants this permission, and the demons leave the man, and they enter the pigs in an instant. Those 2,000 pigs stampede down the hillside and then drown in the sea. The locals who witnessed it come out and see the man who used to be a monster now sitting there healed. And weirdly, these people ask Jesus to leave because his power was disruptive to their economy and you the reality of their daily life. It's pretty crazy, right? Like, imagine seeing Jesus come down, does some miracles, saves this guy who's possessed by demons, puts him into a bunch of pigs, literally saves this guy's life, potentially could save other people's lives. And the people there are like, yo, yo, chill with that, bro. You're doing too much, dog. You got. You got to pull back. It's kind of wild. Know, like, this is Jesus we're talking about, dog. This is Jesus Christo. Now, Jesus simply does as they ask and gets ready to leave. But as he's stepping onto the boat, the story takes a turn. The man who had been possessed runs up and begs to come along. And interestingly, Jesus refuses and gives him a specific command. He says, go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and now how he has had mercy on you. And this refusal isn't out of spite. It's out of love. If Jesus had taken the man with him, the locals would have simply returned to their normal lives and been relieved that this possessed crazy guy was gone. But by leaving him behind, Jesus left the living evidence of his miracle. And the Bible says that all the people were amazed, meaning that while Jesus physically departed, the people were left in this state of awe. You know, he left his power and his influence behind in the form of that healed man, which I think is maybe a good lesson for us. If, you know, Christ has done something in your life, your duty is to not, you know, just go off and, you know, as they say with the disciples on the mountaintop, when they're with Jesus, they say, like, can't we just stay up here forever? Like, why do we need to go out to the people? Why do we need to go proselytize? And Jesus is like, hey, that's our duty. You know, you got to get out there and spread the good word. And so he leaves this man there to go be a living testament to what he has done and to his divinity. And there's also a few other exorcism miracles, like when Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene and when he cast a demon from a mute boy because the disciples couldn't do it, telling them later, this kind, referring to the specific demon, can come out only by prayer. But there are just way too many miracles for one episode, so we'll get that in a different episode. However, in every instance, Jesus doesn't use incantations or rituals or spells. He commands and the spiritual realm obeys him, which I think is an important distinction that, like, he's not doing magic. He is just exercising his divine will over reality. Now, each author of the Gospels has their own stories that they tell, but there's one miracle that is recorded in all four Gospels, and that is the feeding of the 5,000. And it has a lot of credibility because it appears in every gospel, and it was ostensibly done in front of a crowd of at least 5,000. So. So here's how the story goes. Jesus is teaching a massive crowd in a remote place, and it's getting pretty late, and the disciples want to send everyone home to find food. But Jesus looks at them and says, you give them something to eat. They then find, like, a young boy who has, like, you know, a couple loaves of bread, five specifically, and two small fish. Now, what are we doing? Right? 5,000 men posted up, you know, and this is the thing. When they say the feeding of the 5,000, because of the old laws and sort of the way that people saw society, this is only 5000 men. This is not counting women and children, which could potentially be up to, like 15,000 or 20. We're talking like an arena of people walking around and listening to Jesus. And so they gotta feed this arena of people, and they only got, you know, some bread and some fish. But Jesus takes the food, looks up at heaven, gives thanks, and breaks the loaves. He hands them to the disciples, who then hands them to the people, and the food just continues to come. Then Jesus tells them to gather the leftover. So they pick up 12 baskets of broken pieces of bread. And so why 12? Well, 12 is obviously a recurring number in the Bible. Constantly. We know the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 disciples. And this moment is literally Jesus saying, I am the new Moses. Just as Moses gave the Israelites manna from the wilderness, Jesus provides bread in the desolate place. John chapter six shows us the reaction of the crowd. They say, surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world. Now, they were so amazed at this that they actually tried to seize Jesus by force and make him king. And they literally tried to create a political revolution and, you know, based off this magical food supply. But Jesus, knowing their hearts, slipped away into the hills. He wasn't there to be a vending machine. He wasn't there to, you know, like, conquer their political enemies. He was there to be the bread of life. Now let's get into the main event, perhaps the most important miracle of all, and that is the resurrection. Now, not only the resurrection of Christ, but other resurrections. The gospel records three specific people that Jesus raised from the dead. First is the widow's son at Nain, In Luke chapter 7, Jesus walks into a town and sees a funeral where a widow has lost her only son. Now, this is significant because she's a widow. That means she already lost her husband. And that automatically sort of signals that she's at a lower place in society without any type of, you know, financial stability or protection from her husband. And losing her son, her only son, is a massive loss because this is now the moment where she's losing any type of man in her life that can be representative in the broader, you know, male dominated society. So Jesus's heart goes out to her. He touches the coffin again, another ritual taboo. Touching the dead makes you unclean, just as, you know, touching a leper does. And he says, young man, I say to you, get up. And the man sits up in the coffin and starts talking. Luke says, jesus then gave him back to his mother, which is a small detail, but it's the exact same phrase used in the Old Testament when Elijah raised a widow's son centuries earlier. The crowd picks up on this immediately and starts saying, a great prophet has appeared among us. God has come to help his people. Now, from here, word about Jesus spreads across the entire region. Now, the second resurrection is someone that we actually talked about a little earlier. And this is Gyrus and Jairus's daughter in Mark, chapter five. Now, like I said before, Jairus was the synagogue leader with a sick daughter that Jesus was going to heal. But if you remember, he was interrupted by the lady who he healed after she touched his robe. Well, by the time Jesus gets to the synagogue, the daughter of Jairus is already dead. And the people start mourning and they tell Jesus, why bother? She's dead. And Jesus says, she's not dead, but asleep. And everyone starts to laugh. But he kicks the mourners out, takes only the parents and three disciples into the room, and takes the girl by the hand and he says, talitha com, which literally means little girl, get up. And she stands up immediately and starts walking around. She was 12 years old. And in a really human moment, Jesus then tells the parents to get her something to eat because, you know, she'd Been dying for days and was probably starving. He tells them not to tell anyone what happened. But a 12 year old girl walking around alive after being declared dead is not something that you can hide for a long time. But the third one is maybe, you know, according to some people, the climax of his ministry of his life on earth. And perhaps one of the most, you know, famous, I guess, resurrections in the Bible, perhaps outside of Christ himself. And that is the raising of Lazarus in the book of John, chapter 11. Now, what's interesting about Lazarus is that Lazarus is a friend of Jesus who gets sick. And Jesus deliberately waits two days before going to see him. And by the time he arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days total. Now, a woman named Martha, who's Lazarus's sister, tells Jesus by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there for four days. In Jewish tradition, it was believed that the spirit hovered near the body for a couple days, you know, three days usually. And by the fourth day, hope is gone. If someone is not, you know, giving any sign of life, by the fourth day, they are absolutely dead. But Jesus stands before the tomb and he weeps. Then he commands, take away the stone. He prays and then shouts in a loud voice, lazarus come out. And the man who had been dead comes stumbling out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face. And this miracle is really the tipping point. John chapter 11, verse 53 says. So from that day on, they plotted to take his life. The religious leaders realized that if he could raise the dead and had been doing it multiple times and could heal the sick and walk on water, and he could do all these things, and specifically raising Lazarus, well, they had absolutely no power over him and ultimately he had to be stopped. And that takes us into Holy Week. As Jesus heads towards the cross, the miracles don't stop, but they do change. On the way to Jerusalem, he curses a fig tree because it has leaves of no fruit. This is Mark, chapter 11. And by the next morning, it's shriveled up, up to the roots. It's interesting. I don't know if you ever heard the Louis CK bit about this. It's very funny. No, it's hilarious. But it is an interesting miracle because it's the only destructive miracle that Jesus performs. But it is a metaphor on the temple in Jerusalem, which looks religious on the outside, but it had no spiritual fruit. And it is sort of the symbol of him cursing these people that claim to, you know, proclaim God's name. But are not living in accordance with what God wishes for humanity. Now, when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem and makes it to the garden of Gethsemane, chaos breaks out. Soldiers arrive to arrest Jesus, but Peter pulls out a sword, slicing off the ear of the high priest's servant, this guy named Malchus. And In Luke chapter 22, he actually records the response. Jesus says, no more of this. And he touches the man's ear and heals him. I mean, think about that. The last miracle that Jesus performs before his death is healing a person who's there to arrest him, ostensibly like an enemy. This is a person that is coming to take Jesus to his death. And Jesus still shows pity and heals the man. And it is the ultimate example of, you know, loving your enemies. But, of course, the greatest miracle of the Bible isn't the one that Jesus performed with someone else is the one that I guess you could say was performed on him, and that is the resurrection of Jesus. So after being brutally tortured, crucified, pierced with a spear, you know, shout out to Longinus the spear of Destiny, if you want to check that out. I think we did a whole episode on Longness. Yep, you can go see what that whole story is about. And Jesus is then buried in a guarded tomb. And on the third day, the tomb was empty. He appeared to Mary Magdalene, then to the disciples, and then to 500 people at once. He wasn't a ghost. He was physically there. It had scars you could touch, but he could also walk through, you know, locked doors and vanish from sight. He had what was called a glorified body, kind of what Christians believe happens to everyone at the end of time. The body will never experience decay or sickness or death. He even does one last nature miracle in John, chapter 21. And this is the massive catch of 153 fish, recreating the moment that he, you know, first called his disciples. Sometime after the resurrection, Peter announces to the others. He says, I'm gonna go out and fish. It's their job to be fishermen, so let's go fish. Six other disciples join him, and they head back out to the Sea of Galilee, and they fish all night, and they catch nothing. But early in the morning, a stranger stands on the shore, although they don't recognize that it's Jesus yet. And he calls out, asking if they have any fish, and they shout back, nope, nothing. And he says, throw your net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some. And they're kind of just like, all right, what does this guy know? But when they Obey. The net becomes so heavy with fish that they can't even haul it into the boat. The John, realizing the pattern, immediately tells Peter, look, dude, it's the Lord. And Peter dives into the water and swims to shore. When they drag the net in, they count exactly 153 large fish. Yet remarkably, the net doesn't tear. And this final miracle brought the entire journey into a full circle. It reminded them of their, you know, it reminded them that their success would never depend on their own effort, but in their obedience and faith. Faith to God. Another interesting thing here is the number 153. Mathematically, 153 is a triangular number. A triangular number is basically, you know, the amount of numbers required to make a triangle. So three is a triangular number because you literally have one at the top, two on the bottom. Three makes a triangle. Six is a triangular number. You have three at the bottom and then two and then one, that's six. And 153 is a perfect triangular number number, meaning you could make a perfect triangle. You have an image on screen that can explain this better. But this has led some scholars to interpret it as a symbol of spiritual perfection or harmony or maybe the idea of summing up all things in God's plan, some also connected to the idea of the Trinity multiplied by completeness, you know, Although again, some interpretations vary wildly on this specific miracle and this number. So. So if you look at the entire list of miracles, you notice a pattern. Jesus never performs a miracle just to show off or to, you know, smite his enemies or with jealousy or, you know, anything like that. Every miracle was a work of restoration in the world that God created. Ultimately, none of the pain and evil and, you know, sickness or war would exist. And because of the fall of man, evil has entered into the world. And so storms shouldn't kill people. People. So what does Christ do? He calms the storm. Sickness shouldn't kill people or destroy their body, so he heals the sick. People shouldn't die. In the story of Adam and Eve, they're meant to live forever, but as a part of their sin, they're now limited to a number of years they can live. So Christ literally resurrects other people as well as himself. Demons shouldn't own human beings, so he cast them out. So from the wedding wine in Cana to the empty tomb in Jerusalem, these are some of the most famous miracles that Jesus Christ has performed. And maybe just to end here's a great quote from the great Christian writer who I believe had a Deathbed conversion or to Catholicism. Let the record show. And that is C.S. lewis. And he says a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. CS Laws. And that is the summary of some of the most significant miracles that Christ performs in the Gospels of the Bible. I mean, this gets me fired up. I'll be honest. I've heard all of these before, but there's been a while since I've actually, you know, gone back and reread them. And maybe I should take some more time to read my own Bible, you know, But I've, like, some of the resurrections, like, little details and like, so many, like, little callbacks to the Old Testament that, you know, he's speaking to a people that have a, you know, very adept understanding of the ancient scriptures, you know, the Hebrew Bible deceptu and, you know, the Torah in general. And he's able to just invoke these lines and draw on them to immediately communicate to the people he's around. He's like, I'm doing this. And I'm doing this because I am the Son of God, and I'm invoking this Old Testament thing that you guys already know by the prophets who came before me, you know, like, you know, invoking like, Elijah or Job or things like that. And I just. I don't know, I think the stories are so beautiful and they kind of. They kind of make me a little bit inspired to try to be a better person in my own way, you know, try not to be a fruit, a tree that be bears no fruit, and try to be a tree that, you know, in some way impacts the world in a positive light. Makes me happy, you know. Any of these you'd never heard before? I've actually never heard of any of the resurrections aside from his own, you know, Lazarus. You never heard of Lazarus? I'm not a religious guy, Christos. I've done a terrible job of proselytizing. But also, like, for the skeptics, even if half of these are true. It's still amazing if one is true. If one is true, you know, like, if one. So who knows? Maybe he was performing a bunch of magic tricks and just lying and all these people were just covering for him for, you know, thousands and thousands of people in his ministry that he saw. And, you know, his resurrection was seen by 5,000 people. And, you know, he multiplies bread and loaves and, you know, he raises people from the dead and heals people's eyesight. And hundreds and thousands of people are present for each and every one of these miracles. And maybe they're all lying and maybe it's all just, you know, a big fugazi. Maybe he's a great con man, you know, or even, like, if they weren't fully dead and they were just very sick and he made them better still. Cool. Or maybe he's the son of God. I don't know. Go to church, guys. It's Sunday. Thank you guys so much for tuning into another episode of Religion Camp. Truly, God bless you. This show has deeply impacted my life. I will say since having a kid, I've gotten significantly more religious. I've become. I was raised very Catholic, but since having a kid and it's kind of like, you know, sort of chewing on the nature of eternity and, you know, what a good moral life actually looks like, it's made me reconsider a lot of things and has brought me closer to my faith. And I've done it a lot on this show and I've done it a lot in companionship with you through the comments and through, you know, your guys own, you know, religious perspective. And Catholicism is the thing that I love. But at the end of the day, I truly think that whatever your relationship with God looks like, I would just implore you to continue to grow in it because it has been extremely fruitful and beneficial for me in my own life, you know, in the way that it looks for me. Maybe it looks different for you, but I. True. I truly hope that if nothing else, you seek truth. But anyway, thank you so much. I have great news, by the way. I'm going on the road. Mark Yagnon live. You can cop tickets right now. At the end of the year. I'm going to a bunch of cities. I'm also on the road with Schultz, so I'll be in Salt Lake City. No, this already happened a couple days ago. A couple days ago. But I will be with Schultz on a bunch of other road dates if you guys want to go check that out. Andrew Schultz. I'm Also, we got history camp. If you're a fan of history and going through deep dives about Napoleon Bonaparte to Ben Franklin to the Crusades, everything else that's ever happened in history, well, history camp is for you. If you like crazy deep dives on what's going on right now, whether it's, you know, conspiratorial, mystical, a hidden mystery that's never been solved, or maybe even just sitting with a really interesting person that knows more about the world than I do, which is most people. You can check out Camp Gagnon. We also have a secret society, and that is at patreon.com/camp. Gagged on. And every single day, basically, you're gonna have a piece of content to chew on, whether it's a bonus episode, whether it is one of our regular episodes that you're gonna get with zero ad interruptions, or maybe it's, you know, one of our monthly zoom calls that we do with all the campers, where I tap in with the good people and see what everyone is up to. You're gonna get all of that for, you know, a pretty hefty initiation fee, which is the sacrifice of a cup of coffee every single month. That's right. One cup of coffee. That's all it's gonna cost you to get into the secret society. You can check it out. Patreon.com campgagnon I will see you guys all next Sunday. God bless you. Thank you so much, and peace be with you. Goodbye.