Location – Somewhere in the Kingdom
Setting – Sunday School
Subject – Have Miracles Ceased?
During a recent Sunday school class our instructor shared a list of the miracles of Jesus:
- Turning water into wine (John 2: 1-11)
- Casting out unclean spirits (Mark 1:23-28)
- Healing the leper (Mark 1:40-45) This was a more fun story when I was a kid and thought it was a leopard.
- Raising the child from the dead (Luke 7:11-18)
- Curing the blind (Matt 9:27-31)
- Many others…
Now, as is the case in many LDS Sunday School classes, there really aren’t intended to be alternate answers to questions like these. They are little more than rhetorical devices. In the LDS context, of course miracles still happen. They happen every day. We just need to acknowledge the hand of the Lord in all things.
35 And now, my beloved brethren, if this be the case that these things are true which I have spoken unto you, and God will show unto you, with power and great glory at the last day, that they are true, and if they are true has the day of miracles ceased?
36 Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them? Or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved?
37 Behold I say unto you, Nay; for it is by faith that miracles are wrought; and it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men; wherefore, if these things have ceased wo be unto the children of men, for it is because of unbelief, and all is vain.
Like many things in Mormonism, this is of course a foregone conclusion. Why we spend an hour “discussing” these things when there really is no discussion but rather an echo chamber is kind of beyond me. Still, it works for many in the room so there is no need to create a discussion that will just create angst in the minds of these others, so I kept one ear on the conversation and one eye on my ESPN app.
When we returned home, my spouse, who was on the other side of the room during the lesson, mentioned that I had been quiet, and asked my thoughts. I shared them with her, and now I share them with you:
It would seem to a logical Mormon that before we can answer the question if miracles have ceased we would first have to determine what we mean by the concept of “miracle.” In my time in the church it seems we label a number of things as miracles, and we would need to define the term before we can evaluate if they are still occurring or not.
Miracles the first type:
These types of miracles are all around us. Flip a switch to light up a dark room. Use your cell phone to Skype a family member or friend 1000’s of miles away. A machine that washes and dries your dishes for you is certainly a wonderful thing. These are all things that meet the definition of miraculous – extraordinary or amazing. There are things that have become so common place that we don’t really stop to consider how awesome they really are. While a visitor from 100 years ago would struggle to explain such events without resorting to the divine or supernatural, a modern mind sees them as quite easily explained through scientific means. While a modern mind would never try to explain the lights going on simply because some supreme being willing it to be so, it still in a wonderful occurrence and a blessing in our lives. Each of these examples above, and thousands more like them, are everyday miracles when looked at for what they bring, thought they certainly are not directed by deity.
Miracles the second type:
These miracles are less to do with conveniences of modern life and more the irregular, but not infrequent, experiences that happen in our daily life. I recently watched a basketball game in which one team was down by more than 10 points with less than two minutes left to play. The team had trailed the entire game, from the opening tip throughout the following 38 minutes. Yet, with two minutes left in the game, a series of amazing events occurred. The trailing team blocked opponents’ shots, recovered loose balls, rebounded aggressively on both ends of the court, and hit shot after shot. When the final buzzer sounded, the trailing team was trailing no longer and left the court victorious. What a miraculous finish! I heard it from more than one fan surrounding me, believer and non-believer alike. Was it miraculous? Certainly! Did deity intervene on the behalf of the trailing team? Unlikely. Rabid fans from the likes of Liberty, Notre Dame, or BYU might believe that God has favorites and wills “His team” onto victory. Such a position must surely diminish the very nature of God. It turns the divine into a petty fan. One that can and does use his omniscience and omnipotence to influence a game of mere mortals.
Perhaps even more dangerous are examples of this type of miracle expressed in fast and testimony or on social media. These are the miracles of the lost car keys. We have all heard the story. I lost my keys and I prayed and was led to find them so that I could get to work on time. While this type of miracle and story probably boosts the faith of those who experience the event and they credit the outcome to divine intervention, what about others in the audience? The mother who has been praying for help to feed her starving child, the child that has been praying for a cure for their sick mother. These stories then turn God into a heartless being who cares more about helping a wealthy member of the congregation get to the gym than a poor member of the congregation pay the water bill. Is this who we really believe God to be? Are these things really miraculous, or wonderful happenstance?
Miracles the third type:
These miracles are a bit more difficult to explain, and open the possibility of the divine. We have all heard of these types of miracles or perhaps even experienced them in our own lives or the lives of our families. Consider the student who has struggled and struggled to understand a particular subject or topic. Perhaps they ask for a priesthood blessing. The day of the big test comes and miraculously our student performs outstandingly well. Was this due to the intervention of Deity? How can one conclusively say either for or against? Or the case of the individual, diagnosed with terminal cancer, who against all odds survives and beats the disease. Was it due to the skill of the doctors? The efficacy of a new drug regimen? The priesthood blessing they received? The prayers and faith offered on their behalf? Luck? Who’s to say for certain. The atheist will surely ascribe it to the medical treatment the patient received. The faithful, to the mercy of a loving god. While it is impossible to determine the actual cause of the wonderful there is no doubt that a wonderful and good thing has happened in these peoples’ lives.
Miracles the fourth type:
These miracles are the ones that cannot be explained in any other way than divine intervention. Unfortunately, they are not only exceptionally rare, they are also never (read that word again – NEVER) documented. While we hear much about blessings of healing working in even very radical cases (terminal cancer etc.) we have absolutely no case of an amputee regrowing a limb. We have many instances of individuals who have died and then been brought back through the use of CPR, but we have no instances of an individual who is dead, cold, embalmed, and in the casket, being recalled to life. These types of miracles would have no other explanation than divine intercession. Yet, there is not a single documented case of these types of miracles. Turning water into wine happens every day at vineyards around the world as irrigation systems feed grapes that are then crushed and fermented. Yet there are no instances of individuals who take a container of water and can magic it into wine outside of the scriptures and none that have verifiable evidence.
Conclusion: The day of miracles has not ceased for miracles of types 1-3 and it is quite likely that it will not cease. That these types of miracles will continue for as long as there are people in the world to observe them is a near certainty. Perhaps more importantly, it is important that we take the time to be grateful for these types of miracles and to reflect on how wonderful our lives are.
If we are talking about miracles of the last type then I think we have to conclude that those types of miracles have also not ceased. Rather, it is likely that they never began in the first place.