Miracles

William D. McCrackan

Christian Science deals in miracles; it expects them and bears witness to them. The sick who have felt its compassionate touch have been miraculously saved, for the law of mortality has been broken for them. The inebriate, the insane, the blind, the deaf, the lame, the poor, the misunderstood, all can see God's miracle performed in their behalf. But some one may say: I need no healing; I am well-favored and well-to-do. Then that one especially needs the miracle of healing in order to be made really whole, to be rescued from the stupefaction of self-importance and self-satisfaction.

Miracles are the order of the day. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," Jesus said to the tempter. The Word brings God's miracles,—the demonstrations of operative divine, law, raising the whole tone of human affairs from matter into mind. The miracle is natural. It is the normal event, defeating the procedure which mortality calls natural. It is wonderful only because mortality deals in suppositions, in the mediocrities of falsehood. The miracle is due to divine power, but its effect is discernible by physical sense and susceptible of human testimony. It is rational with God, though irrational according to the wisdom of this world; illogical to the materialist, but a heavenly fact. Mrs. Eddy has defined the word miracle as follows, in the Glossary of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 591): "That which is divinely natural, but must be learned humanly; a phenomenon of Science."

The word miracle does not sound as strange to-day to the public ear as it did before hard-headed, matter-of-fact soldiers and sailors talked about the angels of Mons, the miracles of Château-Thierry and Zeebrugge. Miracles are to be expected now in unraveling international tangles and establishing permanent peace. The miracle should not be made to wait upon war for its appearance, but should belong as surely to the piping times and tunes of peace as to the days of shot and shell. It should not be said of humanity that it needs terrible disasters to force it to be willing to admit the power of God as available and decisive in saving and healing men and nations.

In addressing a delegation from the French Association for a Society of Nations President Wilson is reported to have said: "I cannot help thinking of how many miracles this war has already wrought, miracles of comprehension as to our interdependence as nations and as human beings; miracles as to the removal of obstacles which seemed big and now have grown small, in the way of active and organized cooperation of nations in regard to the establishment and maintenance of justice." Christian Science brings the miracle of justice, which is love and heals.

What mortal mind chooses to call ordinary means or regular methods of healing are merely its own pitiful concepts. Christian Science healing bases itself on immortal Truth. In her sermon entitled "Christian Healing" Mrs. Eddy declared, "The only immortal superstructure is built on Truth; her modest tower rises slowly, but it stands and is the miracle of the hour, though it may seem to the age like the great pyramid of Egypt,—a miracle in stone" (p. 11). She has truly stated in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 340), "The lives of great men and women are miracles of patience and perseverance."

During Jesus' ministry his works set forth his Messianic mission. When Nicodemus, a "man of the Pharisees" and "ruler of the Jews," came to Jesus for instruction, he said to him, "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." There is no mystery in iniquity, in sickness, or in death for which Christian Science cannot furnish an explanation. Spiritual visions seem marvelous to materialistic minds, but Christian Science explains their normality. We need daily miracles, in the home, at church, on the street, in government proceedings, to purge the mental and physical atmosphere of the day. The harmonies of Christian Science meet and master the inharmonies of material sense, and heal discord. The miracle of the loaves and fishes is necessary to-day to feed the starving multitudes who like wandering sheep have no shepherd,—not as a miracle in the ordinarily accepted meaning, but as a scientific demonstration of God's infinite plenty. The miracle breaks precedent and tradition in order to heal; it cuts across written or unwritten usages in order to save; it substitutes spiritual commands for the collection of beliefs which are handed down by men and not by God; it cuts off the right hand and plucks out the right eye of false creation in order to establish the keenness of true vision and the power of the hand of the Lord. Then let the miracle appear, to bless humanity with divinity.

William D. McCrackan.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit