Cast your bread......upon the waters

It was called the “Miracle on Ice” and the 2004 movie depiction is simply entitled “Miracle.”

In 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 was struck by birds, lost all power and famously ditched in the Hudson River in New York City. All 155 on board lived to tell the (seemingly impossible) tale.

The Governor of New York - an elected official in a secular capacity - called it, “Miracle on the Hudson.”

Why?

There are seemingly natural ways to explain both of these events.

The USA hockey team played a perfect game that day. The Russians were overconfident and USA wins. That day. But any other? Probably not. In fact, not long before the Olympics, the same two teams met in an exhibition. The Soviet team blasted USA 10-3. By any measure, the USSR team was vastly superior.

But not that day.

That day saw a miracle.

Similarly, US Airways 1549 should have ended in defeat. Of course, in this case defeat meant the difference between life and death, and life triumphed 100 percent.

Was it mere fate, or divine intervention that spared this flight? The Captain, “Sully” Sullenberger later told a magazine writer, "One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education and training. And on January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal."

Federal investigators used flight simulators to test the possibility that the flight could have returned safely to either of two airports. Only eight of the 15 simulated returns succeeded. Furthermore, the report called these simulations unrealistic.

Not a miracle? Just great airmanship. Or luck. Or chance. Or whatever.

There was great airmanship; kudos to the flight crew, but consider also:

The flight was in mid-January. The air temperature was below freezing, but the water temperature was 41 degrees. Ice is not common on the Hudson, but has occurred in the last decade.

And what about that flight crew? Was it mere chance that of all the pilots qualified to fly that plane, this particular Captain was assigned to an otherwise routine New York to Charlotte run, and he’s the one who made all the right decisions in split-second timing to guide that aircraft over a crowded city, bridges and onto water as opposed to a runway? Successfully?

There’s no reason why those natural factors can’t combine to qualify as a miracle.

Which is why trying to debunk miracles by finding seemingly innocuous explanations will often fail.

And that brings us to Jesus. (You knew it would).

According to the Times of Israel, researchers think they’ve found natural explanations for two of Jesus’ miracles.

I say think…

The first one is the feeding of the five thousand as reported in the Gospels.

Here’s Matthew 14:13:

As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Here the second miracle. When Jesus sees some of His disciples on the Sea of Galilee and they haven’t caught any fish despite trying all night.

The apostle John writes in

John 21:5:

He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”

“No,” they answered.

6 He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”

Now, here’s what the Israeli researchers say about the miraculous appearance of the fish as reported in PJ Media:

They suspect that high winds created waves in the deeper water, bringing water with a lower oxygen content closer to the surface, thus killing the fish. Once they went belly-up, they were easy to take. Ehud Strobach, who is a climate researcher from the Volcani Institute, offered this:

“Using observations from the monitoring program in the Sea of Galilee, we created short 3D lake simulations for two fish kill events. These simulations indicate the initiation of internal waves and upwelling of cold, anoxic (oxygen-poor) water into the surface at the location and time of the fish kill events.”

The USA hockey team played their hearts out. The Soviets were complacent. Captain Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles had the skill and experience to ditch that plane.

The weather and other factors merged elegantly.

Miracles.

Why can’t a natural event be a part of a miracle? In fact, natural events are part and parcel of miracles. Experience, determination, natural phenomena and many other things come into play to create a miracle.

But there’s more. Miracles do require more than just natural power. Supernatural power is essential.

Notice how the appearance of the fish can be explained more or less naturally. But the perfect timing can’t. Those fish wash up a day before or a day too late and, well…

And there’s even more. Did you notice something was missing from the feeding of the 5,000 miracle?

Just a minor detail.

Nobody tried to explain the bread.

I’m not a baker, but even I know that bread doesn’t come from a lake or from some unpopulated wilderness. High winds won’t account for a “bread kill” that will satisfy the appetite of 5,000 men (no to mention the uncounted women and children).

Nope, that bread had to come from somewhere and that is darned hard to explain in the natural.

There’s just one more little detail.

Another miracle; the feeding of the 4,000.

Here it is in Mark 8:1:

During those days another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, 2 “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.”

4 His disciples answered, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?”

5 “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.

“Seven,” they replied.

6 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people, and they did so. 7 They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. 8 The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 9 About four thousand were present.

Let’s say there was a second fish kill. Would the timing be perfect for a second event? If so, wouldn’t that be a miracle?

There’s also still that inconvenient problem about the bread…

By the way, in the feeding stories there is no mention at all of the crowds being remotely near a body of water. There are far more holes in the “debunking” than in the miraculous

Funny how a perfectly executed series of flight maneuvers and perfectly executed hockey plays can easily be called miracles. And the results were miraculous, because something greater than the people and the circumstances were involved.

Heaven wanted to show something transcendent; even in the mundane of hockey and air travel.

We need to see miracles in our lives. They remind us of the value of believing in the unlikely, the implausible… the impossible.

Which is exactly what Jesus asks us to do, because He makes the impossible happen. Cast your bread......upon the waters