miracles

[transcript of the talk on miracles i gave to youth group tonight]

hey folks-

So tonight I'm going to give a talk on miracles. I'm going to read a passage from the Gospel of John, Chapter 11 - I'm sure most of you have heard of this story before - it's the raising of Lazarus, one of Jesus' last and most famous miracles. It's in John 11:17-44. (click!)


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First let's just take a moment and reflect on how awesome this miracle is. Not only did a dead person come back to life, but we're talking 4 days this guy's been dead. Martha says "there will be a stench." Four days back then was a long time - they didn't have funeral homes to embalm the body - by the end of the day the body is decomposing.

But look at what he says first: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" Ok, this is what I want to focus on - this is the heart of the miracle. "I am the Resurrection and the Life."

So Martha and Mary's brother dies, and they get him back - how many people would kill to have that? To get someone back for just one day? And they got him back for good. I don't want to be a downer, but - some of you were here last year, when I talked about how my Mom died from brain cancer - I mean, every Christmas growing up my letter to Santa with my Christmas Wishlist was like, "#1 - Mom back." And then, you know, my poor dad had to explain that Santa wasn't bringing Mom back, so me and my brother and sister - we're thinkers, you know - we decided to just cut out the middle man and started writing Christmas letters to GOD. We were like, okay St. Nick, maybe bringing people back from the dead is a little out of your jurisdiction, a bit above your paygrade - so we'll just talk to the Big Guy. And then, you know, Dad had to explain that God doesn't really work that way.

So I got older, and soon I got old enough to ask the question - why do miracles happen to some people and not others? Why did Martha and Mary get their brother back, but me and my brother and sister couldn't get our Mom back?

In order to answer that, we have to look at the "why" before looking at the "why not." So look at what Jesus says: "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." So that they might believe. In every miracle Jesus performs in the Gospels, He always says "your faith has saved you." And here again - the miracle happens so that they might believe that HE is the Resurrection.

Think about it - Lazarus eventually dies again - everyone does. Life expectancy back then was about 45-50 years, Lazarus was about 30 - so he bought 15 to 20 years. So - why would Christ even bring him back? What was the point? I mean, it's great that they got him back for a few more years, but was that really the point? It can't be. It's a sign of a deeper truth. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead to show - I can do it in this world and I'll do it in the next. Lazarus might die a second time - but he'll rise a second time, too - even if you don't see it.

The purpose of a miracle is to glorify God - to express a Divine Truth that we don't usually get to see. It was good that Lazarus could live another 15 years, but the real glory is that through Christ, we can live forever. That is what miracles are about. If we pray for a miracle - and it doesn't happen - we have to trust that as crazy and as irrational as everything seems, ultimately the greatest good and the greatest capacity for hope and for love comes from that miracle not happening. If it's really about God's will, and not our will, we must trust and submit obediently to that. We have to persevere in hope and in love in order for anything to make any sense, in order for the good to be drawn out of despair. And I can tell you that with my mom - as painful as it has been for my family, as much as we're still working through it and dealing with it - I can see inside the love and hope and joy that has come from it, that it has left something beautiful with us. That ultimately, in some senseless way, more beauty and love can come out of that pain than could have come out of a miraculous healing.

There's this book called the Brothers Karamazov, my favorite book - it's about faith and doubt. At this point in the story, a holy elder that everyone considered a living saint had just died, and everyone is convinced that he is going to be incorruptible - a miracle that happens to holy saints where their bodies don't decompose. So everyone gathers around the body of this elder, waiting to see if he's going to be incorruptible. But by the end of the day, everyone can smell him - they can smell him decomposing. Not only was he corruptible, he was decomposing faster than most. And people were jeering and saying that he was never holy. His disciple, Alyosha, was tormented by this. Here is what the narrator says:

But it was justice, justice he thirsted for, not simply miracles! And now he who, according to his hope, was to have been exalted higher than anyone in the whole world, this very man, instead of receiving the glory that was due him, was suddenly thrown down and disgraced! Why? Who had decreed it? Who could have judged so? These were the questions that immediately tormented his inexperienced and virgin heart. He could not bear without insult, even without bitterness of heart, that this most righteous of righteous men should be given over to such derisive and spiteful jeering from a crowd so frivolous and so far beneath him. Let there be no miracles, let nothing miraculous be revealed, let that which was expected immediately not come to pass, but why should there be this ignominy, why should this shame be permitted, why this hasty corruption, which "forestalled nature" as the spiteful monks were saying? Why this "sign" which they now so triumphantly brought forth together with Father Ferapoint, and why did they believe they had any right to bring it forth? Where was Providence and its finger? Why did it hide its finger "at the most necessary moment," as if wanting to submit itself to the blind, mute, merciless laws of nature?

But look at that line - "spiteful jeering from a crowd so frivolous and so far beneath him" - who does that remind you of? It's Christ. Christ's death was senseless at the time - He was supposed to be the Messiah! He was supposed to drive out the Romans and free Jerusalem and save the world and there He was, nailed to a tree, like a common criminal! And His Resurrection was a reality that enabled our own Resurrection yet to be seen. But that senselessness - that is life. That is how we learn about hope, that is how we learn how to love. If everything went right all the time, we would never know what it's like to really hope, to really love. Miracles are about hope - so sometimes, the miracle is that there is no miracle - sometimes the best way to learn about hope is to persevere despite feeling that there is no hope.

But we always have one miracle to return to, always - that's Christ. The Eucharist. The miracle that is the all-powerful God who created everything humbled Himself, fused Himself to humanity in all its sin, and offers himself as a sacrifice that you can receive every week - or every day if you'd like - that is a miracle that God consistently sends us as hope and consolation.

Earlier this week, I was praying pretty hard about some future decisions - I could either go to Honduras, or go to UVA grad school. I was feeling really anxious, so I was like, "Okay, God. I want to do what You want to do, so let's make this easy. You send me three signs - three signs - telling me what I'm supposed to do next year. So the next day I'm feeling pretty good - 'okay, lookin for my signs, lookin for my signs' and I go to Mass. FIRST reading:

"WHY do you ask for signs and more signs?"

[people started laughing]

"You have already been given the greatest sign - Christ present in the breaking of the bread."

I was like, COME ON.

You know, I'd been feeling like I should go to Adoration to pray about it, and now it was like God wanted me to go to Adoration, pray, get this great big ambiguous answer.... FINE. Have it Your way.

But miracles aren't about making things easy - miracles are about cultivating the capacity to hope and to love, to draw us closer to God. And that doesn't always look like we think it's going to look. Maybe miracles happen just so we know that God can change things - so we know that if He doesn't, He must have a really good reason. Maybe miracles happen so we can embrace the everyday.

And there we have the Eucharist again - the glory of God humbly present in the everyday. The most important part of miracles are invisible. In every miracle, the most important part of miracles are invisible. When you're in Adoration- who's to say miracles can't be worked in your soul? When you love God, when you pray - you can become a walking vessel of God to the world. You can be a miracle in the lives of the people around you.

There is so much beyond our understanding - miracles teach us this. Submit always to God's plan, and I guarantee you that you will see miracles worked in your own life



mt.