Tag: miracle

They Have No Wine

They Have No Wine

“They have no wine.”

It isn’t a question. It isn’t even really an ask.

Rather it is a simple statement from a mother to her son. At the wedding feast of Cana, Mary makes the needs of the wedding couple known to Jesus. But how could He not have already known? Yet she models so beautifully the role of every Christian: to present our needs and the needs of others to the Lord. She does this with simplicity (she doesn’t muddy it up by telling Jesus how to remedy the problem) and full of trust (since her next words are to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’).

“They have no wine.”

Sometimes I think that I just keep presenting the same thing to the Lord over and over again. While in many ways that is true, there is also a sense in which it isn’t true enough. I am the one who gets tired of asking. I am the one who grows weary with bringing to the Lord that which He already knows better than I do. Unlike Mary, I am less convinced that He will hear my plea and respond generously to me. Instead, I find it necessary to instruct the Lord in how he might fulfill my need. I have the perfect idea for how the Lord might work in my life, if only He would listen.

Jesus, however, is secretive with His plans, hiding from us what the future holds, likely (for nearly all of us) for our own good. He has plans which I cannot fathom, ways to fulfill my longings which I could not guess, even if given thousands of years to do so. And His plans have the benefit of being good and perfect, rather than my own short-sighted idea of what might be good for me.

Continue reading “They Have No Wine” →

Joyless Pragmatism

Joyless Pragmatism

“I just wanted you to know that I won’t offer to pray in class because I’m not Catholic.  If you want, you can email my parents and ask them about it.  But when you look around the room for volunteers to pray, that’s why I’m not offering.”

A student had approached me after class one day and started our brief conversation with that explanation.

“Oh?  That is fine that you aren’t Catholic.  I assume your parents are not either, so I wouldn’t email them about it.  I still expect you to answer questions and participate in class, though”
“No, they are Catholic.”
“They are, but you aren’t?”
“Yes.”

I’ve often wondered why some people remain faithful to the religion of their parents and others don’t.  Considering that this student brought this conversation up in the first place, I figured I could try to ask some questions to get some bearing on the situation.

“Are you Christian?”
“No.  I believe in God, because I think it is silly not to.  I just believe he created the world but isn’t really active in it.  I’m not against Christians or anything.  I just think you do your thing and I’ll do mine.”

This student seemed so…pragmatic.

I think the thing that struck me the most was how reasonable the student was striving to be.  Granted, I am grateful when students are reasonable, but I couldn’t help but sense an absence of joy in this system of belief.  In many ways, I was impressed with the responses I received to my questions.  Yet I also wondered if this lack of belief stemmed more from a desire to be intelligent rather than closely examining the issues.

The popular notion of ‘you do you, I’ll do me’ continues to baffle me.  If there is any honest pursuit of the truth, then clearly you doing your own thing and me doing my own separate thing cannot both lead to the correct answer.  Continual diversity in beliefs cannot lead to unity in the end. Continue reading “Joyless Pragmatism” →

With the Lord, A Little is More Than Enough

With the Lord, A Little is More Than Enough

The Lord is the quintessential example of making do with what you have.  He is able to provide abundance from an experience of poverty.

When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’  Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’  They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’  And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’  

Matthew 14:15-18

In a situation where the disciples were prepared to send the crowds away, Jesus challenged them to feed them with their meager rations.  To the disciples, it was an impossible feat.  There was not enough food to provide for them all.  How could they feed thousands with food meant to satisfy a few?

The answer is found in surrendering the little to Jesus.  For Him, it is manageable to multiply the fish and the bread to be superabundant.  The same is true with each one of us.  When we surrender ourselves to the Lord, little though we may be, He is able to do far more with it then we could imagine.

You give them something to eat.  In our littleness, Christ is asking us to be streams of living water and bountiful banquets for the weary wanderers we encounter.  Yes, we are to direct them to Jesus, but Jesus living in us.  When we present ourselves to the Lord, He provides.  It is never just enough, it always more than we could have hoped.   Continue reading “With the Lord, A Little is More Than Enough” →