I remember sharing about this event with a friend of mine who is rather a vocal sceptic about the existence of God. His reaction was dismissive, and he replied, with an impatient edge in his voice, “As if your interpretation of what happened was the only possible one!” He was, I admit, quite right about that. What I see with the eyes of faith as God’s loving presence and intervention in my everyday life could, in most circumstances, probably be explained quite convincingly otherwise. Miracles, small ones or big ones, do not by themselves “prove” anything. If that were the case, none of those who saw the miracles Jesus performed could have doubted him unless they were quite obtuse.
What is needed for a miracle to become a sign of God’s presence
is that we have “eyes to see”. That a set of events can be explained naturally
or not is not the issue here. Even the most natural sequence of events
can be a powerful sign of God’s love to one person, but not to another. Whether
I see things because of natural or artificial lighting is irrelevant; what
matters is whether I can see or not.
Jesus was never interested in dazzling people with his works
of wonder. His focus lay elsewhere. He always zoomed in on the faith of the person
before him, on that person’s openness to recognizing and welcoming the loving
action of the Father in their life. For the person who believes in the constant
and unwavering love of the Father for them, all is sign, all is miracle, even the most mundane of event. It is not only on a wedding anniversary that God wants to celebrate love and “prepare a meal for
us, serve it to us and pay for it as well”; it is every day of our life.
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