Not today

She halted before a pool called Rushy-pond, flanked by the ends of two hedges; a railing ran through the centre of the pond, dividing it in half. Over the railing she saw the low green country; over the green trees the roofs of the town; over the roofs a white flat façade, denoting the entrance to the county jail. On the roof of this front specks were moving about; they seemed to be workmen erecting something. Her flesh crept.
She descended slowly, and was soon amid corn-fields and pastures. In another half hour, when it was almost dusk, she reached the White Hart, the first inn of the town on that side. – The withered arm, Thomas Hardy

I’ve been thinking about something lately. A question that won’t go away. Why aren’t there any miracles today? This supernatural void is so glaring that there’s even an atheist website called “Why doesn’t God heal amputees”. Do we not need miracles anymore?

The story quoted above is about a young woman with a withered arm named Gertrude. She tries every medicine known to man, desperate to be set free from her ailment. She needs a miracle but even though she goes to church she never prays for one. At the end of her rope she breaks down and goes in search of a conjurer named Trendle. The same conjurer who had told her that her arm was cursed.

Trendle’s house was reached at last, however: he was not indoors, and instead of waiting at the cottage, she went to where his bent figure was pointed out to her at work a long way off. Trendle remembered her, and laying down the handful of furzeroots which he was gathering and throwing into a heap, he offered to accompany her in her homeward direction, as the distance was considerable and the days were short. So they walked together, his head bowed nearly to the earth, and his form of a colour with it.

“You can send away warts and other excrescences I know,” she said; “why can’t you send away this?” And the arm was uncovered.

“There is only one chance of doing it known to me. It has never failed in kindred afflictions, - that I can declare. But it is hard to carry out, and especially for a woman.”

“Tell me!” said she.

“You must touch with the limb the neck of a man who’s been hanged.”

She started a little at the image he had raised.

Some people will tell you that miracles do happen today, just not here.

I attended a BBQ recently where someone said exactly that. Two teachers from the Christian school that our kids attend who had been away on sabbatical said they had actually observed miraculous healings. And even heard of dead people coming back to life. I’m not sure what you’re supposed to say when someone drops a bomb like that on your conversation. It fell like an atom bomb and came to a crashing thud in our circle of folding chairs. I made a point of looking around at the group of fairly standard Christians and studied their reactions.

The general response was “Wow! That’s great” followed by an attempt to change the subject. Some had a faraway look in their eyes and I imagine they were trying to decide if the teacher was lying, mad as a hatter or slow coming to a punch line. I like discussing difficult questions so instead of allowing the conversation to transition to something lighter I kicked at the explosive canister lying at our feet. “And so why don’t those things happen here?”

“I’m not sure… maybe we don’t expect it to” was the reply.

My wife says I was out of line. She says, (and I quote) “if you are attending a purely social gathering and you see that a subject is making people uncomfortable, then you should leave it alone, you should not deliberately seek to stir up a hornets nest”. I guess most people don’t want to talk about stuff like that at a BBQ. They want to talk about sports, their favourite TV show or some other trivial matter. It was of no consequence because the rest of the group wouldn’t continue discussing the subject and so I’m still left wondering what the answer is.

By this time the young woman’s state was such that a grey mist seemed to float before her eyes, on account of which and the veil she wore, she could scarcely discern anything: it was as though she had nearly died, but was held up by a sort of galvanism.

“Now!” said a voice close at hand, and she was just conscious that the word had been addressed to her. By a last strenuous effort she advanced, at the same time hearing persons approaching behind her. She bared her poor curst arm; and (the hangman), uncovering the face of the corpse, took Gertrude’s hand, and held it so that her arm lay across the dead man’s neck, upon a line the colour of an unripe blackberry, which surrounded it.

Most people that I know have given up on magic and spells. We’re much more scientific, more logical, more technologically advanced today. We trust our Doctors and modern medicine. I’d still rather trust God, I’d rather He still healed us.

I’d rather Jesus still did things like this…

And He entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched Him, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath day; that they might accuse Him.
And He saith unto the man which had the withered hand, “Stand forth”.

And He saith unto them, “Is it lawful to good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? To save a life, or to kill?” But they held their peace.
And when He had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, He saith unto the man, “Stretch forth thine hand”. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. – Mark 3:1-5