TOO MIRACULOUS . . .

Last night, our care group discussion centered on Jesus' miracles: why He performed them, for whom He performed them, when He performed them. As an introduction to this study, the question was posed: If you could be any super-hero and have any super-power, who would you be and what would your powers be, and what would you name yourself?

The replies were varied and hilarious. There was SpiderBat, a lethal (but kind, of course) combination of Spiderman/Peter Parker and Batman/Bruce Wayne. There was Rain, the female embodiment of nearly all of the X-Men characters and their powers. There was Ranger (NOT "Ranger Jay," which evokes a whole different genre), who had the power to fly and heal wounded animals. There was InvisibleDashYoda, or just DashYoda for short, who had the wisdom of Yoda, the speed of Dash and ... well, was just also invisible. There was Inertia, who had the power to pull, repel and react to the kinetic energy emitted by forces around him, until he met his tragic end in suicide because his powers grew too strong. There was me, who simply wanted to be Sydney Bristow from "Alias," a well-trained young woman who was smart, strong and kicked the bad guys' butts to save the world over and over again.

After the study was over, after we had studied Jesus' miracles of healing the woman who had been hemmorhaging for twelve years, turning water into wine at a wedding feast, casting out demons that had been using human bodies to terrorize the neighbors, making lepers' bodies whole and clean, feeding 5,000 hungry people with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, and raising a man's beloved daughter from death, another question was asked: Why did no one want to have the super-powers of possessing ultimate compassion, healing the sick, feeding the poor, righting wrongs and bringing justice and salvation to the nations?

I actually had thought of these powers, these miraculous powers. I had almost voiced them, but for some reason, felt foolish and idealistic, like a goody-goody, so I kept quiet and came up with Sydney Bristow instead (the next best thing, right?). But after the question was asked, and I slept on the indictment overnight, I woke up to the thought that the other reason I hadn't voiced the desire to possess these super-powers was this: some part of me, some major part of me, doesn't believe that such miracles can be performed now.

Somehow, I recognized, I had become a person who thought that it was more likely that I could perform covert operations on behalf of my government, wearing hundreds of different disguises, shooting dozens of different kinds of guns, rappelling down all sorts of high-rise buildings, killing all manner of bad guys, and saving the world from nuclear destruction twenty times over, than that I could, with the power of Christ, stamp out hunger, end human suffering and injustice, and bring peace and love to Creation.

How shameful. I am so embarrassed that I would think that one completely unreal and impossible scenario was so reachable and attainable, and that the other proven, achieved and attained scenario was not so. What a sad state of the world, that such goodness and satisfaction seem so far-fetched, and what a sad state of me, that I would not recognize the hope that is in Christ and strive to achieve it, no matter the expense to myself or the loftiness of the goal towards which I run.