-Jesus is curiously reluctant about doing
his "signs." (An important note here: the Greek word usually translated "miracle" does not have miraculous overtones; it is simply the ordinary word for "sign," semeion.) Not only does Jesus play down his signs; it almost seems that he doesn't do them unless they are practically wrung out of him by others. He looks for all the world like a kind of walking cafeteria table of power from which people serve themselves with hardly a by-your-leave.
