The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Many a Christian finds it difficult difficult to swallow the fact that Jesus performed miracles. Of course, there are all kinds of arguments about it, but you don't hear too much about it anymore because so many people could they could just simply care less. Just keep this in mind.
We're not living in a world, where people are divided on Christian truth, not in the least. We're living in a world where people don't give a rap about Christian truth. Just keep that in mind. But the thing is this, that here we have two miracles, and they are very different. I remember being in Lourdes, and it was during the national pilgrimage, that's the biggest.
It's a tremendous thing. Pilgrims, and of course when I say pilgrims, for every pilgrim you probably have a person coming to Lourdes seeking some kind of a cure. That's why they come. The people who come as I did are ours, small minority. So these trains converge upon Lourdes from all over France.
It's the annual national pilgrimage. So there was a vast crowd. And as you know, Lourdes is down on the level of the river, and the mountains of Pyrenees go straight up. And down there you have a huge open square, huge acres. And then the mountains go up and around the mountains, circling the mountains, you have the way of the cross with huge figures.
And in the evening, there's a candlelight procession with winding around the mountaintop, singing hymns to our blessed mother. Now remember, this comes at the end of a day that started, in many instances, with being bathed in the in the water coming out of that spring. Then you have mass, and then you have lunch, and then you have an afternoon afternoon benediction when and that is the great focus. Here you have three or four or five rows of people, invalids of all and sick and ill of all sorts, around this huge square. And then, in the great emptiness in the center, when I was there, a black robed priest with a black beard, shouted the litany, special litany of Lord.
Now this is a tremendous thing. This and this is the afternoon. Then you have dinner, and then you come back, and you have this evening evening devotion, which winds up by the procession in the hills. So this this all comes at the end of the day. And you can imagine how the emotional intensity grows.
And I was way up there looking down. It's a tremendous sight, really. And I heard a very, very specific English feminine voice saying to somebody behind me, anything can happen here. And she was right. Anything could happen under those tremendous intensity that you feel there.
It was vibrant, where you have thousands and thousands of people, you know. It's and this builds up. Remember, this had gone on for several days. So when we talk about faith, when we talk about wonders being done, when we talk about as we today, psychosomatic medicine, it's a fact. There's nothing wrong with faith healing.
It's a fact. But are all Christ miracles faith miracles? See, that's the point. Well, you just take in today's reading these two. They are extremely different.
Even if the girl wasn't dead and was sleeping, she certainly wasn't conscious. Now, the point that I would like to make is this, that the people of our Lord's time knew a lot about being born, conception, having babies. They knew a lot about about dying. They knew a lot about death. Remember, they didn't have embalming.
So and they were very much aware that you shouldn't bury a live person. It's very embarrassing to the person being buried. They were aware of these things. They knew death when they saw it. And they were extra careful to recognize it and to pronounce it.
And obviously, this person, this good little girl, her death had happened some time before. At least early enough so that they had time to bring in the official mourners, the people who were paid in order to produce the official kind of weeping and crying and moaning and groaning. So there's no reason under God's earth skies to think that the girl wasn't dead. And furthermore, when Christ said she's not dead, you know what the reaction was? They laughed him to scorn.
That's what the text says. They laughed him to scorn. And he went and picked took the little girl by the hand, she came up, rose from the bed. Now, the they're the same there there aren't many miracles. Let's face it.
There aren't many miracles of this sort in the New Testament. There are not. Because you take the instance of the woman coming up and touching our Lord's garment. He our Lord says, your faith has saved you. And our Lord says that many times, your faith has made you whole.
Your faith has cured you. He says that. So let's not let's not back away. There's no reason for embarrassment there. None at all.
Our lord said, your faith has made you whole. He said, with faith you can move mountains. So the power of faith, confidence, the power of trust, there is no reason at all for us to minimize it, to reject it, to neglect it, to ignore it. None at all. But the point is you can't reduce all of the miracles of the New Testament to that kind of thing.
The other one, of course, is the is the boy being carried out of the of the village of Nayib. There, asked Christ to do anything. But he sees it. He sees the the the boy on the beer being brought out for burial. In some way, he knows that the boy's mother is a widow, which is being left all alone.
And our blessed lord of his own spontaneous spontaneous will goes over and restores the boy to his mother. We whatever it is, you can't say that that was a faith healing. Corpses can't make much of a contribution to their own restoration to life unless you happen to be God, and then you're not a total corpse. And so today we minimize this matter of miracles. People, seem to be embarrassed by it.
Why in the world should we be? Why should we back away from the fact that the Son of God performed miracles? I have read, I've never met one, but I well, yes, I met one, a minister. They have terrible difficulties with accepting accepting miracles. The the one instance, and I mentioned this to you several times, is about the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.
That what happened was, you see, that there was no actual multiplication of bread and and the and the fish. What happened was that our blessed Lord in some way gave a signal to the multitude that those who had food should share it with those who did not. And so when they shared it, there was more than enough to go around. So it was, you see, kind of a miracle of bringing people to understand the need of their neighbor. You you you see how that ties in with the present situation, this great liberation theology business.
But you so that but why why would a minister of God have trouble with admitting a miracle if you believe that Jesus is the son of God? Tell me. I find that I I can't grasp it. Whether can I can understand very well whether in this instance there is a miracle or not? Of course, I can.
But why think in terms of of there being no miracle? You see, some people try to interpret the New Testament, and I mean these are not non Christians we're talking about. Miracles play a very important part in our Lord's life, not for his benefit, but for ours. It's no small thing to hail Jesus Christ as the son of God. That is no small thing.
You see, there's so many people who say, oh, yes. Of course, I admire Jesus. An extraordinary man. Probably a man better even than Socrates. And I admire him tremendously.
But of course he's not God, he's not divine. That's silly. That's being immature. That's being adolescent. That's being primitive.
That's being just dumb. You see, you hear this. I'm not talking about the past. I'm talking about present tense. And as C.
S. Lewis has said more than once, if there's one thing you cannot say about Jesus Christ, is that he was only and exclusively a good man. That is one thing you cannot say about Jesus. Because if he was only a man, then he was even the worst liar and hypocrite the world has seen, or he was the world's best possible patient for an insane asylum. You have a choice.
If he was not God. Now miracles play a part. We need the confirmation of miracles. We need this we need this support to our credibility. Of course we do, if we think a little bit about it.
That Jesus, as our Lord said, don't ask me to tell you, look at my works. Look at what I've done. You can't be more pragmatic than that. And there's nothing wrong in being slightly pragmatic, slightly not too much. And so, today let us take this wonderful episode.
The woman being cured through her faith. The little girl being brought back to life because Jesus had the power to give life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. In the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit. Amen.