Lectionary: Matthew 14:14-22
Do I truly believe in miracles?
It is an innocent enough question on the surface, but delving into it might reveal something deeper. Because what do I mean by miracles? Often, when I say something in my life is a miracle, I very well might mean that whatever just happened was very lucky, or very fortunate, or perhaps just a welcomed coincidence.
But what about true miracles? Bombastic, show-stopping, awe-inspiring miracles? Where do I see those in my life? For most, miracles seem pretty hard to come by. In this industrious, digital, and increasingly material and complicated world that we live in, it can be difficult to witness anything miraculous at all. Instead, we live in the world of the mundane, the ordinary, the realistic. We wake up, go to work, go to bed. The majority of our life is often a series of cycles, tasks, expectations. And so, it is easy to view life as very habitual, and therefore unsurprising, and therefore not very special.
And so I instead look for miracles as they are are witnessed to by the Church and by Holy Scripture, through the lives of Christ and his Saints. Yet in doing this, it becomes painfully obvious how distant these miraculous events are from me, separated by time. Jesus’s death and resurrection was firmly over 2000 years ago, and the majority of Saints’ lives are relegated to the days of distant history. And yes, there are some Saints whose lives creep into recent memory, but I tell myself that this is an exception that proves the rule, that there is this clear and measurable decline in miracles, in Gods activity in his own Creation.
So I tell myself that I missed out, that somehow this time and place that I am now in is lesser and more empty than what came before. But what this is, is me fabricating for myself the idea that there is a time and place where God cannot get to me.
It’s placing boundaries and limitations on God, saying “there’s no way he can get to me here, today. There’s no way that God can truly operate in my own life. There is no longer, in this world, a place for miracles. That time is over”. But in doing this, I convince myself that my difficulties in the present are now unreachable to God, and I deny myself any opportunity to receive his Grace in the here-and-now.
And so I blind myself to the presence of Christ in my own life.
--------
Today Christ shows us that there is no distance he cannot bridge, and that the time of miracles is not lost to us, but is right here and now. For today, the disciples also doubt the possibility of miracles in their own lives. And they have no historical distance as an excuse. Right before them is their Creator, their Lord. But they say to Christ “send these people away. There is no food for them here, there is no possibility that you could provide them the sustenance that they need.”
So even from the very beginning, even those closest to our Lord decided within themselves that there were limitations on the miracles that God is capable of. It’s not an issue of distance, or an issue of time. It is an issue of Faith.
And so Christ shows us that miracles are still possible. He takes the simple gift of bread and fish, and he multiplies it, he transforms this gift into something far beyond what it could possibly be without him. And he does so mystically. Somehow, these five loaves and two fish are ineffably multiplied, so that 5000 men and their families are fed to their satisfaction, and that there is still an overflowing of food leftover. There is no explanation, no diminishment, no excuse that could shoo away the fact that a miracle has occurred here.
And Christ takes this example - of miracle, of replenishment, of healing, of making whole - and he goes even further. Christ makes the miraculous nature of his ministry, of his sacrifice, reach across all of time.
He does this through the Cross, through his death and resurrection. For Christ’s arms do not merely stretch forth across the beams to which he is nailed, they stretch forth also across all of creation, all of time. Which means that the miracle of the crucifixion, this miracle that is Christ making us whole through his life-saving death, restoring our humanity to us: that miracle reaches us today in this very moment.
It is an event that happened, an event recorded in time, but it is not bound by time. It is not limited to those who were there, instead Christ brings that miracle straight to us. And today, we participate in that miracle ourselves, by participating in the Eucharist. A gift that is broken, yet not disunited. The one body of Christ is offered, and shared amongst us all, so that we may receive the miracle of his saving sacrifice, and be replenished and satisfied. And just like the loaves and fishes, this gift multiplies and grows and overflows; it cannot be contained.
And now, having been united and sanctified by this gift that Christ offers to us, we go back into the world that we formerly saw as mundane, and we recognize Christ’s presence in it everywhere.
All of nature, all of humanity. Our jobs, our families, our labors and our struggles: all are windows to the reality that Christ is here with us. Our very existence on this planet is evidence of a true miracle: that God is here, operating in our lives and guiding our steps.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
