Some years ago it was fashionable to seek human explanations
for the miracles of Jesus. For example, according to this trendy kind of
thinking, there was not really a miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes,
when Jesus fed the five thousand. What really happened (the trendy said) was
that Jesus persuaded the crowd to be unselfish and to share what they had already brought with them.
But this hardly squares with the reactions of Jesus’
disciples, or of the crowd. They responded quite differently. They recognised
the Messianic power of Jesus to provide in plenty and wanted to make him king
by force, so that Jesus had to escape from them. Clearly, the crowd’s strong
reaction is not the consequence of a mere exhortation to share on Jesus’ part;
it is the response to something tremendous which actually happened, something
so tremendous as to provoke their extreme reaction.
This is something far more than mere human kindness. In
Jesus, the miraculous cannot be limited to the little human gestures described
in the first paragraph of this reflection. God really has broken into our
reality in Jesus, and his miracles and signs show the real power of God to
transform our human reality, to intervene in this world of want, of sin and of
suffering.
When God intervenes, we are healed; we are fed; we are even raised
from the dead. Where God reigns, there is no more sin, no more suffering, no
more shame, no more deprivation. His miracles, of whatever nature they are, are
glimpses of a new creation, pure and holy, in which we all are transformed, in
which we all do his will at all times. Even now, we can share in the promise of
that reality. Even now, if we learn to love and obey him with all our hearts,
we can glimpse the wonderful future he has in store for each one of us.
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