Miracles and the Advent of Puffins, Part I

I. A history professor spoke at my church yesterday. Her name is Shannon, and she talked about miracles and about learning to recognize miracles--to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. One of her texts was the story in John's gospel of the chronically ill man who lay by the Pool of Siloam but could never make it into the water when the angel stirred it. Jesus turns up, and, incongruously, asks the man if he wishes to be well. When the man indicates that he would indeed like to be well, but just can't quite manage the rush to the holy water, Jesus simply tells him to get up. And he finds he can, although he doesn't even know who Jesus is. It's a miracle, but you could have missed it, had you been there by the Pool of Siloam, waiting for some shiny angel to stir up the water.














I think what Shannon was trying to do was to get our motley congregation to pay more attention to the presence of God. To the extraordinary in the ordinary, as she put it. It was a good reminder for me--I who often long for angels on the threshing floor, like Gideon, for someone to wrestle with and give strange blessings, like Jacob. Instead, how often is the miraculous like the angels who turn up dusty and hungry at Moses' tent? Unnoticed, unless we have open eyes and ears to hear.