How could anyone watch a man four days buried walk out of a sealed tomb, and not believe in the power of God? After all, Jesus says that's why he was doing this great work of power, "So that they may believe."
So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.
How could anyone see this and not believe? Yet soon after this, Jesus himself is executed by people who observed this miracle and did not believe (or perhaps believed to the point of terror...). And a short while after that, Jesus stands among his disciples, himself risen from the dead, and even some of them do not believe. Thomas, whom the writer of John's gospel places with Jesus during the Lazarus story (he even has dialogue); Thomas, who watched Jesus bring Lazarus back from the dead, is unable to believe that Jesus is risen on the testimony of others. He has to see for himself. And in that story, in this same gospel, Jesus says, "Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe."
Is faith that is ignited by signs and wonders less worthy? I hope not - for Jesus went about doing many signs which brought people to faith, and the book of Acts is full of such wonders. Witnessing the power of God is the beginning of faith for many. I confess that sometimes when I pray for healing for someone, I like to remind God of the benefit his reputation might enjoy from a positive outcome. (Yeah, God has not actually hired me to be his agent...)
Jesus did invite people to believe based on the signs and wonders he performed, but not to rest there. We go astray when we focus on the signs themselves instead of who they are pointing to. Mature faith endures during times when it is harder to see God's hand in the world about us. That doesn't mean God is less active. It's an invitation to pray for keener faith vision to see how God is all over our lives.
Evidence of God's power can be like the romantic phase of a relationship; it invites us to go deeper into knowing the Other, and allowing ourselves to be known. Finding ourselves known and yet loved can be the most transforming miracle of all, bringing back to life parts of us that have died.
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