The miraculous and the mundane may seem to be mutually contradictory aspects of the Christian life, but in actual fact, God is present in both aspects. Jesus is, after all, Immanuel (God with us) and has promised never to leave us or forsake us (Heb 13:5, Matt 28:20). It stands to reason that the God who is omnipresent (see Ps 139) must be with us not only in those moments when His power intervenes miraculously in our lives but in those many moments which seem so ordinary (and frankly dull).
We cannot deny that God is a God who performs miracles (Ps 77:14). We see from the life of Moses so many miracles: not only his calling at the burning bush (Ex 3) but the fact he saw God turn his staff into a snake; He saw God perform ten miraculous signs to Pharaoh using that staff and his words; He saw God part the Red Sea in order to make a way of escape for His people; He saw God provide water from a rock, manna from heaven and quail from nowhere to feed His people. He saw God ensure that clothing and footwear lasted for forty years in the wilderness. If ever we see a man who saw miracles, Moses is that man. Yet it was God’s presence with him which defined him (Ex 3:12,14) and which distinguished him and israel from other nations. (Ex 33:12-16)
If we take miracles out of the Bible, we are not left with very much! If we take miracles out of the Christian calendar, we are not left with very much! Each one of the major Christian festivals hangs on a miracle. If Jesus did not take on human flesh and come to us through the virgin birth (a miracle), we have no hope of salvation, for only one who was sinless could ultimately bear our sins for us. This is why we celebrate Christmas. If Jesus did not really die for us, then we are still left in our sins and can’t be reconciled to God. But Easter tells us that not only did Jesus die, He was also raised to life again – the resurrection being a miracle which turns our whole world upside-down, giving us hope of life beyond death. Then we have the miracle of the Ascension – for how else can you describe this spiritual being ‘disappearing’ from human sight?! Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon people giving them the ability to speak in other languages and the boldness to witness to the resurrection, is a tremendous miracle. From this point, we see those fearful disciples turning the world upside down by their faith and testimony! All of these festivals remind us that our God is mighty, holy, powerful and able to do ‘immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.’ (Eph 3:20) All of these festivals remind us that God is a God of the miraculous. But at the same time, we have to remember that the Bible is more than an action film. There are lists and genealogies we find boring to read, full of names we find difficult to pronounce. There are sections on dealing with all kinds of life situations, including mould and mildew, which probably cause our eyes to glaze over as we read them. There are stories repeated which feel very much like a child asking the same questions over and over again. Even in the lives of those people we revere as heroes of the faith, there is much that is mundane and ordinary. David may have had his miracle moment with Goliath, but he also spent many a night on the hillside, looking after sheep, dreaming, singing and dealing with animals that wanted to attack the sheep. Moses may have seen God perform miracle after miracle, but he learned humility through forty years in Midian, looking after sheep. Joseph may have ended up as second-in-command to Pharaoh, but much of his work life was spent in organisation and administration, looking after prisoners and deciding, even when he was in a position of power and privilege, where to put all this grain he was collecting.
Gen 24 shows us an ‘ordinary’ story of a servant going to find a wife for his master’s son. It has 67 verses of detail in it, and might be construed as having no miracles. The servant, Laban, Bethuel and Rebekah all acknowledge God’s hand in all these ordinary interactions. The story shows us God working in the ordinary details of life, and thus we see God is interested even in the everyday details of our lives.
Matt 8:14-15 combines the miraculous and the mundane: we see Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever (a miracle) and then see her getting up and waiting on him (the mundane)! Matthew links these two things to show us that the miraculous and the mundane are two sides of the same coin. God is there in both of them, and we will flourish and thrive in life only as we realise this and understand that whichever side of the coin we have tossed today (miracle or mundane life), God is there with us, to help, to bless and to save. His grace is there, everywhere:
‘It’s there on the mountain top,
There in the everyday and the mundane,
There in the sorrow and the dancing/ Your great grace.’ (‘Your Grace Finds Me’, Matt Redman)