Where have all the miracles gone?

It's a question I wasn't even asking myself when the answer came to me. But before I get to the end, let's start at the beginning. What is a miracle? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a miracle is "A marvellous event not ascribable to human power or the operation of any natural force and therefore attributed to supernatural, esp. divine, agency". A marvellous event. Some people say the birth of a baby is a miracle. Well, it certainly is a marvellous event, but it is due to a natural, human process. If you're not sure of what that process is exactly, I suggest you ask your parents or an adult you trust ;-). Ok, so it's a marvellous event, and it's outside the boundaries of what is natural. We all know what is natural; we've lived with it all our lives. That's why the miracles that Jesus did had such an effect on the people who saw them. The healings, the walking on water - these are all outside the operation of a natural force. So, where have they all gone.

I'd like to look at a particular miracle that Jesus performed, the miracle of the raising to life of Lazarus. Lazarus was probably a leper, or a family member of a leper. Bethany was a leper colony, and the fact that Jesus stayed there at all shows his compassion for all men. Anyway, back to the story. Lazarus was ill, and his sisters, Mary and Martha, sent word to Jesus to come and heal him. Jesus knew what was going to happen, but he said "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." (John 11:4). However, he stayed where he was for two days, before he left to go to Bethany. It doesn't say how far away he was at the time, but by the time he got to Bethany Lazarus was dead. In fact he was dead and buried. According to the ceremonies of the time, his body had been packed with fragrant spices, to cover the stench of decaying flesh, and had been wrapped in bandages and put in a cave which was then sealed, to stop the smell from escaping, until it was needed to be opened for the next funeral. It says in verse 39 that he had been in the cave for four days. Jesus ignored this note, and ordered the tomb to be unsealed, and the said the words "Lazarus, come out" (verse 43). Lazarus did indeed walk out of the tomb, and Jesus told them to take off the grave clothes and allow him to walk freely. He was raised from the dead. I'm sure you will all admit that that is indeed a marvellous event, and that no human agency could do it.

I'd like to suggest another miracle now. Suppose it's Sunday morning, and I'm in church (you can put your parishioner of choice in instead of me). I go to a C of E church, so we have a set ritual. Let's say I'm going up for communion. I go up with the worship group so we can then sing during the rest of communion. As I reach the rail I have a massive coronary and fall to the floor. My heart is racing wildly, and my brain is sending and receiving mixed messages. Some of the people in the church start to shout, and others run to me. Someone recognises the problem, another calls for the ambulance, and yet a third starts to thump my chest as if there was no tomorrow. By the time the ambulance has got there I'm dead. My heart has stopped altogether. The ambulance bring out their rather large battery and shoot electricity through me, breaking a couple of ribs as they do so, but it is all to no use. I'm a goner. I have ceased to be, I have joined the choir invisibule. They take me to the hospital in the ambulance anyway, because it needs a doctor to pronounce death, so it isn't until about an hour (or so) until I'm officially dead. I'm taken to the morgue, and stored in one of those little freezers. My family is informed, and my husband arranges my funeral. It's going to be one of those nice, Christian affairs, even though my husband isn't a Christian. He's turned up, along with a lot of people from the church, and five days after I was pronounced dead there is my body, in a nice cardboard coffin (I'm fairly green, and what's the use of buying once of those really nice coffins just to put it in the ground. The vicar is up, about to give my eulogy, when suddenly there's a banging from inside the coffin. "Hey, let me out! I'm alive in here." A miracle, I've been brain dead for four days, stuffed in a freezer, probably embalmed (which is messy, and involves removal of fluid and replacement with other stuff), and then I'm alive again: a miracle.

Ok, who out there believes that can happen. No, don't say "of course it can". Think about it. Who really believes that it could happen? Not many of you I think. Most of you will say - but that's impossible, that could not really happen, not in this day and age.

And that is where all the miracles have gone. Matthew 13 verses 53 to 58 tell of Jesus' return to his home town. There they looked at him, and saw the young man who they had lived with when he was growing up. Rather than seeing who he was, the only looked at who they thought he was. "And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith," verse 58. How many of us have faith that God can do miracles. How many of us believe that God can go beyond the purely natural realm, what we know to be the way things work, and do something so totally different that it just can't be normal: who among us expects the unexpected?

And it's not just our fault, it's the way we have been raised. We have been taught at school that things work a certain way. The universe is made up of atoms, chemicals interact with other chemicals and our bodies react in specific ways. There are strands of DNA which define who we are. We were not created, but evolved, and have a history of millions and millions of years right back to the point where the first ever multi-celled creature occurred in the primordial soup, (or Rincewind dropped his egg and cress sandwich, depending if you believe in turtles or not).

So, we have received a teaching that miracles don't happen, and we have continued to believe that they can't happen, and because of that, God can't perform them. What can we do? How can we change this?

Hold on - God can't perform miracles because of us! Surely God can do anything. Yes, he can. But for some things he needs our help. Our salvation is something which requires two people to achieve. Philippians 2:12-13 says "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." You have to do the work, for it is God who does the work. You can't be a armchair Christian, someone who says "Yes, God's saved me, I believe, now what's on the telly." It doesn't work that way. Whether such a person will get to heaven is between them and God, and I'm not going to judge them, but the bible teaches that faith begets works. James 2:14 to 26 teaches that faith produces deeds - i.e. if you really believe in God, and Jesus, and what they have done for you, then it will have such an impact on your life that you will start to do things which you would never have done before. It may just be that you start to buy the big issue. It might be that you start to visit people in hospital. It may be that you stop smoking. Whatever it is, your life will be changed, and you will find that you need to keep working at changing your life, because trouble will come. James mentioned two people in that passage, Abraham and Rahab. Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son. He believed that God would not break his promise to him, and he also held that God was God, and should be obeyed, so he took his son, laid him on the altar, and prepared to kill him. He had to act, and that act would have cost him several sleepless nights, and much agony in his heart. It ended well, God stopped him from killing his son, and provided a sacrifice instead. Rahab took in two of the Israelites, and hid them from the people of the city. She had to lie to her neighbours. She knew that the city would be destroyed, and that all those she knew were going to die, but she had to let it happen, saving only herself and her family. You can bet that upset her. These had faith, and they had works, and those works came at a cost. Just like the works you find yourself doing as a Christian. You ever made a mistake and then stood up and admitted it was your fault rather than hide it. It takes a brave person to do that. That's a work which comes from faith. And that is the sort of work which you have to do as part of your salvation, as God works in you to bring about your salvation.

So, back to miracles - God needs us to do certain things to enable him to do them. It's all because of this free will thing. God gave us the right to do what ever we wanted to do. He wants us to do things his way, but he gave us the ability to do it our way instead. Our way won't get us very far, in fact it can get us in a lot of trouble, but God wants children, not slaves. So, if we do things his way, and let him have his proper role in our lives, looking to him, trusting in him, and not in what we know or see in the world around us, then it allows him to work in our lives, and through our lives, in a way which just can't happen if we try to hold on to ourselves too much. It's like we are meant to be hoses through which God's power and love can flow freely. If we hold onto ourselves so hard, we squeeze the hose shut, and only drips and drops can get through, but if we relax, and let God do the work, then his love can flow so freely that it will amaze us.

I suppose what I've said can be summed up in the words of the Solomon, the wisest of all men. "Trust in the Lord, and lean not on your own understanding" Proverbs 3:5. If you let go of what you know, and have been taught, if you stop believing in the natural, and allow God the room to work, then you'll start to see the supernatural at work. It's all about giving up your life, so that God's life can grow in you. So, don't try and hold onto your own life - it'll cost you, and you'll be hurt. But you'll also start to see God's work, and you'll get his life, and love, supporting you and surrounding you. It'll bring you joy you can't imagine, and then you'll start to see where the miracles of God have gone.