Monday, Third Week of Lent, Year C
2 Kings 5:1-5/Luke 4:24-30
How would you define a miracle? What
qualifies as a miracle for you? Something with an element of wonder, the
spectacular, the outlandish, the awe-inspiring? Some will say a miracle is an indubitable
intervention of the supernatural which cannot be explained otherwise. Miracles
are supposed to be exotic and extraordinary, aren’t they? Yes, but if you permit
me, I will like to present to you a vista into the understanding of the miraculous
which includes the ordinary.
Our God is a God of miracles, no
doubt, but He seems not to be too interested in the spectacular. And the
difference between these too is clear. Miracles are meant to increase faith;
spectacles are geared to satisfy curiosity. God prefers to woo us by “acts of
love” rather than by “acts of wow”. If He seduces us by the wonders, we will
follow and serve Him interestedly. But if He woos us by love, we will love Him
back with the conviction that He loves us.
Take the Incarnation for example;
what miracle is greater than God becoming man? But how did God bring it about? By
descending from the heavens in splendour and power, with milliards of angels
attending to Him? No but through the ordinary way of being born of a woman. When
He was to begin His public ministry, Satan tried to tempt Him to do something
spectacular like jump from a high mountain or change stones to bread but He
refused to yield. Examine the miracles He performed during His life time; He
tried to keep them as simple as possible without making too much show of them
and warning those who noticed them not to publicise them. All he wanted to show
by them was that “God so loves the world”; that was His way of expressing God’s
love for us and thereby inviting us into the same love.
In the first Reading of today,
Naaman, the Syrian Army General went to Prophet Elisha for healing. He expected
the Man of God to do something outlandish, some abracadabra. But he simply
asked his servant to tell the warlord to go and have a birth in the Jordan.
Naaman was quite disappointed, that was not his idea of a miracle. He would
have gone home in anger without receiving his healing if not for a servant who
reasoned with him: “Master, if the prophet had told you to do some difficult
thing you would have done it. But here he simple says go and wash. Why not obey
him?”
And no wonder, the kinsmen of Jesus
where offended at Him as we read in today’s Gospel. They saw Him as ordinary, a
carpenter, son of Joseph and Mary. Why would He dare insinuate He is something
more, that He is the Son of God? So they were going to throw Him down the hill.
Miracles happen, my dear friends. They
may not happen the way you want them. They may not be such that feed your
curiosity or satisfy your fancies. They may just happen simply, like you take a
simple drug and your ulcer is gone, like your drive from Lagos to Otukpo on our
bad roads without any road accident, like you just had a safe delivery, like your
husband has suddenly become more attentive and stable, and could it be because
of the simple prayer you said? Miracles happen, they may not necessarily be spectacular.
Oh God, help me to appreciate the “ordinary” miracles You let me experience
because you love me!
Take care and God loves you.
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