What's in a Miracle?

Thoughts inspired by Peter Whittle's original post on Modern Day Miracles

Are miracles that important?

I remember thinking – in the early stages of my humdrum Christian years – that if I could witness a miracle first-hand, then I could cast aside all my doubts and just focus on loving God.

With that in mind, I made it my mission to scrape the barrel of my everyday routine for fragments of what might be conceived as a “God-moment”, which ultimately led to me over-thinking every minor incident as a potential miracle:

I found a parking space today! Praise God!

My favourite Tim Hughes song just started playing on shuffle on my ipod! Praise God!

I had a headache earlier, but now it's not so bad! Praise God!

At the time, it was clear that I wasn't the only one wanting to experience the miraculous. Every Sunday at my old church, the pastor would set aside a time for people with niggling headaches, sore limbs, and various other grave afflictions to step forward and experience the healing power of Christ.

I remember once seeing a senior member of the church hop around in a euphoric state after having suffered from long-term leg pain. I thought to myself, “Wow! God is definitely real! This is it!!”.

But it wasn't it. Or at least the feeling didn't last, and in a few short weeks I was back on the hunt for the next miraculous moment.

Thinking back, it makes sense that I would have wanted to experience God in such a tangible way so that I could boldly move forward with my faith. But in reality all I really did was waste time and energy chasing an empty miracle.

By “empty miracle”, I mean a miracle without reason or purpose. In the Bible, when the supernatural occurs it is usually there to supplement a theological point raised by the author. For example, Whittle, in his post on Modern Day Miracles, mentions Jesus walking on water, which is probably one of the best biblical examples where the miracle itself is secondary to the theological message intended by the author.

If we take Mark's version as a starting point (which seems logical given that it is likely the earliest account within the Gospels), Jesus walking on water functions together with Jesus calming the storm, and as a result Mark was able to demonstrate Jesus' dominion over the creation. However, despite this significant nod to Jesus' divinity, Mark notes that the disciple's hearts were hardened.

When we look at Matthew's account, it starts by following the same pattern as Mark's. However, instead of having Jesus get on the boat and calm the storm, Matthew adds a whole new segment to the story where Peter requests that Jesus command him to come out onto the water with him.

In doing so, Peter is able to briefly walk on water until the moment he starts to falter in his faith. Jesus then picks Peter up out of the water and gently scolds him for his doubt. When they eventually get back on the boat, the disciples openly worship Jesus as the Son of God (very different to Mark!).

And then there's John... John takes a different approach altogether. Like Matthew, he follows Mark's original pattern to a certain point. Nothing is really made of the storm (although it is briefly mentioned) and Peter's side-story added by Matthew is ignored.

In John's account; Jesus walks on water, gets on the boat, and then they are all magically transported to their destination.

There is enough in this simple little outline of each account to cause one to question the validity of the miracle of Jesus walking on water – probably the most troubling issue being that Luke, who out of all the Gospels takes the agenda of portraying an accurate summary of Jesus' doings, chooses not to include this story in his account despite sharing the same source material as Matthew (that is, Mark's Gospel and the elusive Q document).

However, in each account the miracle doesn't stand alone. Every story has something bigger to say than just talking about a man who walked on water. In Mark, we gain a greater understanding of Jesus' authority over creation. In Matthew, we gain a greater understanding of faith and doubt. And in John... well, John just wants us to know that Jesus was amazing.

I don't know whether miracles happen or not. The fact is the vast majority of people have not and will not experience a life-changing supernatural event in their lifetimes. However, what I do know is that there are things in Scripture that are considered more important than a miracle.

These are the things that I am more interested in now.