Butterflies and Earthquakes

Somebody once said that a coincidence is a small miracle where God chooses to remain anonymous. Life is full of such events - a "chance encounter with a needy person", a "timely phone call from a wise old friend". Like divine 'Post-It' notes, they remind us of His interest in every aspect of our lives.

Of course, not everybody sees coincidences in this way. There is even an obscure branch of historical study that speculates about coincidences, and their impact on world events. What if Winston Churchill had been killed, rather than injured, by the taxi that hit him on a New York street in 1931? But we know that in such events we can see the hand of God at work.

I will never forget the day a few years ago when, for no obvious reason, I decided to drive from my home in London to Reading, rather than take my usual train, thereby avoiding the Paddington Rail Disaster. I cannot really account for my decision (and I'm no Winston Churchill I!), but I am reminded of an old sermon I heard - if we remain in the will of God, we are "immortal" until His plans for us are completed. Long live The Coincidence!

And yet... I must confess my dissatisfaction with The Coincidence as a tool of advancing the Kingdom. Why crawl when you can run? Why run when you can fly? Lord, if you are going to give me a miracle, then please don't sign it "anon." Write across the sky in huge neon letters - "GOD WAS HERE"!

Scientific "Chaos theory" tells us how a butterfly flapping its wings in Hong Kong could change tornado patterns in Texas. Apparently unrelated events are really inextricably linked by a chain reaction in Nature that is so unimaginably complicated that predictions are almost impossible.

It is easy in our culture to relegate the Lord to the "God of the almost impossible", a "God of the gaps" who makes sense of the chaos, but does little else. We can pay lip-service to divine healing but our thoughts and habits betray our spiritual small-mindedness, our lack of expectation for God to intervene. After many years as a Christian, I still cannot say that my first instinct when I meet a sick person is to offer prayer rather than just sympathy. For Jesus the two appeared to go hand in hand.

Butterfly wings seemed of little use to Jesus, who specialised in miracles of the "neon-sign" variety. Don't just heal a blind man - make it a man BORN blind. Don't just raise the dead - wait till the body is cold ... and FOUR days old! Feed five thousand families with a few loaves of bread. Why swim in water when you can walk on it? Everywhere he went he seemed to bring a seismic shift in people's expectations of what God could do.

Why was Jesus like this? Was he just showing off? No. Jesus thought BIG, and he wanted us to do likewise. He wanted us to know what even the tiniest seed of faith could accomplish (Mt 17:20). Unencumbered by small thinking, he challenged the doubters to believe his miracles (Jn 10: 38). Overcoming fear of failure, he let his compassion overflow onto the sick (Mk 1:41) He felt his Father's passion and power.
As an amateur theologian, I can give you a good five-point essay on why miracles are not as common as they used to be in the New Testament. But five-point essays don't inspire faith. I was fifteen years old when I walked into a Bible Week meeting on crutches, and walked out carrying them, healed of a broken foot. I have seen other miracles since that time, which defy rational explanation - but far too few.
What are we expecting? A few coincidences or some king-sized, eighteen-carat, solid gold miracles? A few flaps of a butterfly's wings, or an earthquake?

Let's call out to God, like Isaiah -

"Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you" (Is 64:1)

Stuart Cathrow, 23/02/2009