Miraculous Signs

"And 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 passage is rather illumined for us by St. Pauls's words in 2 Corinthians 12:12, "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works." These signs that Jesus mentions here as accompanying his believers, specifically, are the ones that the New Testament mentions as being fulfilled in the ministry of the apostles themselves.

Think about how Acts covers the casting out of demons and the apostles all speaking in new tongues. Even the way St. Paul on Malta shook off in the fire the viper that had bit him and how the natives were just waiting for him to swell up and die, but he was just fine. How they laid their hands on sick people and healed them. The drinking of the deadly poison is particularly interesting in the later life of St. John, who, according to the church's tradition, by God's grace, thwarted an attempt to poison the chalice and kill him.

St. Gregory the Great, writing at the beginning of the seventh century, says, "these signs were needed at the church's beginning; the new faith needed to be nourished by miracles to grow. When we plant a vineyard, we must water the plants till we see they begun to grow in the earth, and when they have once taken root, we cease to water them constantly."

So St. Gregory urges his hearers not to be troubled that the church of his time or ours seem to lack these miraculous signs. These signs the apostles administered confirmed for all time the truth of their witness to believers.

-Pr Will Weedon