“It’s A Miracle!”
Faith Seeking Understanding: Did Miracles Really Happen?
August 22, 2021
Acts 4:24b-31
John 14:8-14
The joke goes that a priest had been stopped for reckless driving. As he rolled down his window, the cop could smell alcohol in the car. When the cop asked the priest what he was drinking, the priest said, “Just water, sir.” The cop insisted on seeing what was inside the drink container. As the priest opened it to show the cop, he exclaimed, “It’s a miracle! Jesus did it again!”
The question for the week is this, “Do or did miracles really happen?” But what I hear in this question is a much more important, deeper question or questions, like: Why aren’t miracles happening for me…or for people suffering around the world? Is it because of my doubts? Is it because of my lifestyle or choices? Is it because of who I am or how I look? Or, maybe they don’t really happen, in which case, can I really believe anything in the Bible?
These are good questions. They are important questions. They are honest questions.
I had a discussion about miracles with some colleagues of mine, and even between the four of us, we have different approaches to what a miracle is and how and if they happen. One colleague is a mystic. They see miracles in everything from finding a good parking spot to being raised from the dead. Other colleagues are theologians. They tend to see miracles as events that are against the nature of things and can only come from the hand of God. Another colleague is more communal and sees miracles in human progress—while we can’t understand or describe it, it doesn’t meant it’s supernatural. And yet another is more in the social gospel arena, identifying miracles as movements—both human and godly—intending to give life.
None of us denied the reality of miracles. But we defined them differently. And from there, the answer to why they happen and to whom takes on different weight and different answers.
Now, my thoughts are surprisingly (J) more in line with the social gospel approach. I don’t tend to consider finding a parking place or winning a game or even, necessarily, getting a particular job a miracle. Sometimes it’s just a matter of odds. Sometimes it’s a matter of luck. Sometimes it’s a matter of plain hard work. For me, to assign those as miracles leaves too much in the realm of God puppeteering the world, managing every variable towards some particular outcome.
If I believe that, then I have to believe that God chose to save someone from a car accident by making them late leaving home—and that God chose to cause or allow a car accident for someone else. That doesn’t work for me. Someone recently said that maybe I got COVID on vacation and couldn’t go to Disney World in order to save my family from further exposure in that space at that time—or to save me from a plane crash—or to save me from something else. That God had a plan for that. And I wanted to ask, “So, what about all the other families exposed in that place at that time? Do they matter less?”
The short answer, for me, is that miracles are not God managing our lives for us, maneuvering us like puppets to achieve a greater goal, giving us what we want and making our lives more convenient. That’s not at all the way the miracles in scripture seem to take place.
In the gospel passage today, Jesus tells the disciples that they will do even greater things than what he has done. And that whatever they ask in his name he will grant them. I believe that prayer is a very big player in the event of miracles. My mystic colleague told the story about a parishioner who had all but died from COVID. He had essentially been declared dead, and the only thing keeping him alive was the ventilator. She prayed over him that night, and in the morning he was awake and alert and alive.
She tells about when a Category 5 hurricane was hurtling toward Louisiana, she prayed with her congregation that God would take the hurricane’s strength out of it. When it hit, it was a Category 1. It’s not that she is more spiritual than anyone else—we’re all spiritual beings. It isn’t that she is more faithful than anyone else—she sins, just like you and I. It isn’t that her prayers are more powerful or that she believes more than anyone else. It’s simply that she prayed. She prayed in the name of Jesus.
Which, by the way, doesn’t mean asking for whatever you want and then adding at the last minute #inthenameofJesus. To pray in the name of Jesus means to allow your will to align with that of God’s will—to seek life and justice—and to be humble enough to accept an outcome you weren’t looking for or didn’t want. That’s the power of prayer. And sometimes, praying for a miracle ends up amazingly like what you hoped for—or better. And sometimes, it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean the miracle didn’t happen or that the prayer didn’t work.
My friends also discussed the truly miraculous that comes to us without our prayer, without our understanding, without our belief, and often without our permission. God’s grace, God’s love, God’s salvation is ours. And those are truly miraculous. That we are loved when we aren’t lovable. That we are forgiven before we’ve even considered repentance. That we are accepted even when we refuse to accept others. No one consistently does that—no one—except God.
God alone holds the miracle of this incredible life in God’s hands. And look at this life—the beauty of the earth; the complexity of our bodies; the ways in which we don’t break nearly as often as we should, given all the moving parts; the patterns of a flower; the instincts of the bees; the design of the ocean depths; the movement of the planets within a solar system and a universe. Whether you believe in evolution or not, these are miraculous! All of life is beyond imagination. And yet, here we are.
This congregation is a miracle. People of different backgrounds, education, places, cultures, political parties, home lives—all of us here together to practice grace and worship God. This congregation, by God’s design or by sheer luck, is in this neighborhood, sharing life with these people around us, building God’s kin-dom for the sake of God’s love.
Maybe my mystic friend is right. Perhaps it’s better, sometimes, to chalk up even the little things as a miracle and open our hearts and minds to all that God is doing in this world. Because at the end of the day, whether in scripture or in your own home, miracles can, did, and do happen. Miracles are those moments and events and experiences that create goodness. Miracles give abundant life, even at times of death. Miracles offer hope. Miracles solidify love. Miracles build community. Miracles display God’s glory to the world. Anything that does that is, indeed, a miracle.
Pastor Tobi White
Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church
Lincoln, NE
