TUESDAY, March 16

Mark 8:1-10. He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?" They said, "Seven."...[The people] ate and were filled....Now there were about four thousand people.

Do you have questions? I do.

I think it's a long stretch of the imagination, seven loaves of bread feeding four thousand people. Then again, so was spitting in a deaf man's ear and restoring his hearing. Assuming that the little girl was dead and not asleep, so was her miraculous recovery. Exorcising the neighborhood lunatic and placing his demons inside a herd of pigs, then driving them over a cliff. It gets pretty far-fetched.

Just about the time I want to give up on miracles as literal history, I think about all the sighted and hearing people I know who were once blind and deaf, who now see and hear with exhilarating clarity. Many of us were dead in a myriad of ways and are oh-so-much alive today.

Seven loaves. Four thousand satisfied stomachs. Is it a literal transcription of that afternoon, or some sort of symbolic parable? Actually, either way works for me. Sometimes I can say I believe and know why, and other times I can say I believe and still have questions.

Bottom line? I believe in miracles. That in itself is a miracle. (1998)

PRAY for the Diocese of Brechin (Scotland)

Ps 97, 99, [100] * 94, [95]; Genesis 49:29-50:14; 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.

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