making sense of miracles

Christmas is a time we seem to think of miracles, supernatural events that bless our lives. Obviously, throughout the ages all types of people have pointed to the Virgin Birth of Christ as miraculous, certainly at a level bigger than the US hockey team's win over Russia in 1980. While the notion of miracle is commonly used, it is not universally understood in the same way. Is someone's healing from a bonafide deadly disease the same as getting the job from a call out of the blue you never knew existed. What makes something a miracle?

Is a miracle the same as magic? Some see magic as supernatural activity we cannot explain. Most people, however, see magic more as an illusion. Magicians develop skills to trick us in ways we cannot imagine or observe. While both seem supernatural and consists of outcomes we don't expect or cannot explain, a miracle must be something more.

The 1828 Webster English dictionary says that a miracle is an "appropriate wonder." I find that interesting. Something about a miracle makes it appropriate and something makes it a wonder. So, a miracle fits our thinking in some ways but doesn't in others. There is no further help in Webster's so we must fill in the blanks ourselves.

Here's a thought. Suppose the outcome of some event "makes sense" as appropriate in that it creates fortune or benefit that meets someone's needs. However, we have 'wonder' because there is no explainable cause and effect for why the outcome happened as it did. Many believe that our natural mind must understand outcomes of events through lenses of cause and effect. Therefore, if we cannot see this linkage in an outcome, we "wonder".

We may all come closer to agreeing with what makes something a miracle than the question,
              "why do miracles occur?" 
The purpose of miracles will depend on various core assumptions a person has about reality. If you do not believe that anything beyond the natural world exists, then miracles cannot be the design of any super natural being or power. In this case, miracles must be random occurrences with no purpose. Maybe destiny explains the miracle for you. This is typical of humanists.

If you believe in the supernatural, then there can be two different assumptions about why a miracle happens.

If you assume that reality exists primarily or only in the material world, then you may believe that miracles are the way that the super natural rewards you (purpose of miracle), especially if you show allegiance to the super natural power or being (like God or gods). This involves an assumption that things happen from "cause and effect". However, the link between cause and effect is that your actions cause the invisible power of the super natural to produce outcomes in your favor (the miracle). Thus, while there is no obvious cause and effect within the material world (making the outcome a wonder), there is an ultimate cause and effect between the material and abstract worlds. This is typical of religion.

However, you may assume that reality exits only in the invisible world. This means that events which occur in the material world exists only to point to or represent something in the eternal world. If this is your assumption, what might be the purpose of miracles? Maybe miracles occur so the super natural can choose to reveal some truth about reality, which exists in the invisible world, to people in the material world. Miracles may be necessary to show truth that is different than what the natural mind may assume? One possible purpose of miracles may be to show to the material world that the super natural operates with a sovereign will, not cause and effect. Since the natural mind only understands outcomes via cause and effect, the super natural needs to demonstrate a reality that humans cannot grasp on their own. THIS IS CHRISTIANITY and the super natural with a generous, kind, loving, and just Sovereign will is God.

Maybe this is why Jesus did all of those miracles when He came to the material world - to show us that God, our Father, "chose gladly to give us His Kingdom."

A WONDER to PONDER .....