It’s a . . . miracle?

Adele Nash takes a look at televangelism, Lourdes, Jesus’ face on a pizza and miracles.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who’s somewhat sceptical when it comes to miracles. Perhaps this is because we’ve grown up with decades of televangelists offering to slay us in the Spirit or heal us of our afflictions for an entirely reasonable donation of whatever’s in our bank account.

Benny Hinn—not Benny Hill (the names sometimes get mixed up, which conjures up an entirely different mental image)—is one such televangelist who holds “miracles crusades.” You’d think people would become slightly suspicious when his prophecies rarely come true.

But no, people keep on believing, perhaps hoping for their own miracle. And they perhaps feel they need to fund his private Gulfstream jet (as Napoleon Bonaparte said, “I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get”).

There’s also a lot of money to be made from miracles—and not all of it is pushed by people with shoulderpads. Some of it stems from people with genuine claims of healing and help, and others hoping to obtain similar miracles in their own lives or the lives of those they love.

Lourdes is second only to the Vatican in terms of the Catholic tourism business. This year sees the 150th celebration of the Lourdes miracle, where a young peasant girl saw what she believed to be an apparition of the virgin Mary in a cave near the town while collecting firewood. As you do.
The anniversary event sees people turn up from all over the world. Eight million pilgrims were expected to turn up this year for the event.

For local businesses, it’s a time to wheel out the statues, keyrings, tour guides and so on, while airing out hotel rooms, whipping up soup d’holy water and praying for yet another miraculous season.
The appeal of a virgin Mary keyring isn’t the primary appeal, though.

What keeps people coming—and brings them back again and again—is what the faithful believe to be the power of the area to cure people of illnesses. Many people are convinced their prayers have been answered, though only 67 of the thousands of claims of miraculous healing have been validated by the Catholic Church so far, who insist on a rigorous investigation of the cures.

Martin Moran, chaplain at Lourdes, recently told the ABC TV show Foreign Correspondent that it took quite some time to verify the vision, as “people see faces of Jesus on pizzas and so on regularly.” And if you keep an eagle eye about you, you might just be able to buy one on eBay.
The word “miracle” itself is derived from an old Latin word miraculum, which means “something wonderful.” The word’s a bit overused, often describing things that occur naturally and are beautiful or wondrous (sunrises, rain, The Mighty Boosh).

Even Jules in Pulp Fiction talks about miracles after he doesn’t get shot. Vince says miracles are an act of God, not something like not getting shot. Jules concludes that, “What is significant is I felt the touch of God.” Perhaps that’s what makes some miracles—other than those where there are instant healings—so hard to quantify. Money might arrive at the right time, things lost are found, people’s relationships are repaired, you get a better uni entrance score than you thought you would and so on. And according to Littlewood’s Law, this is something individuals can expect to happen at the rate of about one per month. According to this law, which was postulated by Cambridge University professor J E Littlewood, miraculous events are “commonplace.” With a large enough sample size, he claimed, any outrageous thing is likely to happen.

And I know you’re going to run out to see if the money tree’s started growing in your backyard yet.
But nice things that happen and are a bit out of the ordinary aren’t often considered “miracles.” Mostly, people see miracles as being about divine intervention, something that changes the way in which things were headed and overrules, suspends or modifies “natural laws.” Miracles recorded in the Old Testament were usually major events associated with God, helping the Israelites and demonstrating His power to them. Some of the most obvious examples include the parting of the Red Sea and the existence of manna. His miracles worked to display His power and magnificence to the Israelites, as well as the people around them.
Not that it helped much—quite often, the Israelites would forget, start whinging and end up needing a repeat lesson down the track.

In the New Testament, the majority of miracles were performed by Jesus (but also sometimes by His disciples) and were for the benefit of an enormous variety of people. He brought sight to the blind, raised the dead and many other things that can be found throughout the Gospels.
They all show God doesn’t use miracles without a purpose.

And we can’t expect Him to provide one for every situation in our lives, even though He has the power. We can’t treat Him as some kind of miracle vending machine. Although it says in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 that the gift of working miracles will still exist in the church until the end of time, Ellen White says that “What human power can do, divine power is not summoned to do” (The Desire of Ages, page 535). We also shouldn’t come to a situation where our faith is dependent on miracles occurring (see Luke 16:31), even though miracles can strengthen the faith we do have.

Plus, miracles don’t have to be some earth-shattering event that could be reenacted with Charlton Heston, skywriting and a few smoke machines. They may not always announce themselves with a fanfare and I’m pretty sure we often miss that we’ve been involved in a miracle somewhere along the line.

After all, we can provide “everyday” miracles for people by helping others out when they’re in situations of need and letting God guide us to where we can make the most positive impact on others’ lives.
It doesn’t have to be in a laying-on-of-hands way but something as simple as taking a food parcel to a family or mowing the lawn for an elderly neighbour can be meaningful.
As “common” a miracle as all this might be, it could be something the recipient sees as outrageous (in a good way) or some kind of divine intervention.

Maybe we can learn more about the nature of miracles by examining the commonplace events that are interpreted as something more than run-of-the-mill. Or perhaps we’ll have something life changing happen to us that contravenes the laws of nature.

It may not involve raising people from the dead, or opening the oven one evening to find the pizza you’ve made has something that looks remarkably like a picture of Jesus laid out in the topping but it could be something that changes how we look at life, God and eternity. Hopefully we’ll recognise it when we see or experience it, and appreciate the touch of God in our lives.