Some Thoughts on Miracles by Aaron Hecht

We have just come through Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This year, as sometimes happens, it coincided with Holy Week in the Orthodox Christian calendar, which starts with Palm Sunday and then goes through Good Friday and ends with Resurrection Sunday (known in some circles as "Easter.")

These two holidays are not in competition with each other, just like the Old Testament is not in competition with the New Testament. They are two parts of the same story, written by the same Author and serving the same purpose, which is to bring reconciliation and peace between God and the Human Race, which He created.

Beyond that, these occasions all have something in common, and it's not just that they are all about setting people free from bondage and the blood of a lamb covering us and all the rest. On a more basic level, they all have in common that on the first Passover in Egypt, and then later on as we move through the Exodus story and then again on the first Palm Sunday and the first Good Friday and above all on that first Resurrection Sunday, these were all occasions when God was very visibly moving in human history my performing miracles.

Now, before we move on, we need to ask ourselves what a "miracle" is.

A "miracle" is, simply put, an incident in which something happens in the natural world that should not be naturally possible.

The Ten Plagues of Egypt were all examples of this, as were the events that followed it with God appearing as a pillar of cloud over the people of Israel by day as they walked through the desert and as a pillar of fire by night to give them heat and warmth. Then of course, there's the parting of the Red Sea and the Children of Israel walking through it on dry land and then the Pharoah and his army following them and being killed when God stopped holding back the waters so they came down and destroyed them.

As tfe story continues, God does more miracles, including bringing the Israelites Manna and quail to eat, providing water from rocks, and much later, splitting the Jordan River so the people can pass through, just as He split the Red Sea.

Still later, God did more miracles, including my personal favorite from Joshua chapter 10 where He made the Sun stand still over Gibeon in the Valley of Aijalon so that Joshua and his soldiers could finish the battle. With all due respect to parting the Red Sea, this miracle would have involved changing a lot more things going on in this physical universe, including the motion of the entire galaxy, and maybe more than just our galaxy. All throughout the Book of Judges there are more stories about God giving Israel the victory in battle after battle, often against much more powerful and well-organized armies.

As we continue reading through the Bible, God continues to move in human history and there continue to be miracles but they are seldom as highly visible and dramatic as what we read about in the Books of Exodus and Joshua. Think about the victory of David over Goliath and Ballem's donkey speaking to him audibly.

But these miracles, while still being examples of events occurring in the natural world that would seem to be naturally impossible, do not seem to be as big of a deal as the parting of the Red Sea. Keep this in mind, it's important for what comes later.

Skipping ahead to the New Testament, Jesus' being born of a virgin was a pretty dramatic miracle, but only a small handful of people knew about it, probably just Mary and Joseph and of course Jesus Himself. When He grew up and began His earthly ministry, it was accompanied by many miracles, starting with turning ordinary water into wine and then moving to healing people of various diseases simply by touching them, casting demons out of people and even bringing people back from the dead.

Once again, these were miracles that only a few people would have personally witnessed and even to those few people, they might not have compared to the stories they knew about from their ancestors who saw the Red Sea parting.

Nevertheless, in John 10:37-38, Jesus says "If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.”

Also of relevance is Luke 7:18-23; Then the disciples of John reported to him concerning all these things. And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’ ” And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight. Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

In both of these passages, Jesus is saying that if the people hearing His teachings weren't impressed by their supernaturally brilliant logic and undeniable truth, they should at least be impressed by the fact that He was doing things that would be impossible for Him to do if He wasn't acting in the power of God.

My favorite scene in Cecille B. DeMille's classic movie "The Ten Commandments" is when Pharoah Ramses II (played by Yul Brenner) returns from seeing his army destroyed by the Red Sea and his wife asks him for proof that he defeated Moses, but all he can say in reply is "his God, IS God."

Of course, this was a Hollywood scene, not a Biblical scene. The Bible tells us that Pharaoh died with his soldiers in the Red Sea. But nonetheless, I think it's powerful because it's a demonstration of the fact that seeing great miracles SHOULD be enough to convince someone that they're dealing with a very real God. It's not a "fairy tale" or a delusion or anything else like that. 

As a sidenote to this, the story of the golden calf is such a heartbreaker. These people who had seen the Red Sea parting with their own eyes, witnessing the power of God first hand in such a dramatic way, nonetheless believed that a statue made with human hands, our of gold they themselves had given Aaron for the purpose, was as he said to them in Exodus 32:4 "“This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

Scholars and ordinary people have been asking the question of how these people could have been so foolish for hundreds of years, but maybe we shouldn't be so quick to judge.

In my own short lifetime, I've seen many events that fit the definition of a "miracle," including seeing personal friends of mine healed from diseases, injuries and other medical conditions that  the doctors had said there was no hope for them being healed from. That's a kind of small-scale miracle like most of the miracles Jesus performed in the Gospels. But I've seen other things that were bigger and more dramatic.

A year ago this month, the Iranians launched a large barrage of drones, cruise, and ballistic missiles at Israel. When the sirens went off, my family and I ran down into the bomb shelters, but even as we were running, I knew the attack wouldn't be successful. Some of my neighbors who live upstairs in the building ran down into the shelter with me and my family. They were scared, but they saw me not scared and asked me why. I replied that I had no doubt that God would do a miracle and prevent this attack from doing any serious damage. One of them told me later that he had gone from being an atheist to an agnostic that evening and I encouraged him to keep going.

A few months later, in October, the Iranians tried again with a much larger barrage of ballistic missiles. Once again, they didn't do any serious damage.

Now the Iranians are threatening to try once more and, according to them, this time they REALLY mean it! This time, they're serious and they're going to launch a serious attack that will do serious damage.

If the Iranian leadership were to ask me if I'm scared of this threat, I would remind them of Proverbs 16:9 "A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps" and the Yiddish saying which is derived from this, which simply says "Man plans and God laughs."

But all laughing aside, when Jesus said we should believe the miracles He does even if we don't believe what He says I commend to everyone the history of the modern State of Israel. As we approach Israeli Independence Day in a few weeks, many people take Israel for granted. But the truth is, this country is a miracle of God. 

The story of how this country came into existence on May 15th, 1948, is long and complicated and involves hundreds of people doing all kinds of different things in dozens of countries all over the world over many years leading up to that event. If a mathematician were asked to calculate the odds against all of these things happening, the mathematician would be forced to admit that there's no natural way it could have happened.

When Israel advocates try to make the case for the modern State of Israel being worthy of Christian support, we often do so by showing the prophecies in the Bible that point to it. This is good to do and I've seen more than a few people convinced by this. But I've also encountered people, including people who emphatically declare themselves to be "Bible-believing Christians" who are not convinced by the hopelessly unambiguous words of prophetic Scripture. To these people, I think we can and should point out the miracles that accompanied (and still accompany) the formation and the continuation of this country. There might still be some "stiff-necked" and/or hard-hearted people who won't get it, but there are some who might.