How does the mortal explain the immortal? How can the simple make known the ways of the divine? We worry so much with HOW God does what He does that we often lose sight of WHAT He is doing. That’s the more pertinent question.

In John 9, Jesus opens the eyes of this blind man by the pool at Siloam. John adds the detail that Jesus spat in the dirt and made mud, which He caked over the man’s eyes. John doesn’t explain the significance of the mud – after all, Jesus healed with just a word or a touch at other times. John just tells us that Jesus did it this way, and the man goes to the pool to rinse his eyes. When his eyes open, presumably Jesus is gone.

And then the questions: “How were your eyes opened?” “How did this happen?” “Why did Jesus do it with mud? Why on the Sabbath?” The questions all revolve around the mystery of the moment, and they all miss the miracle: here is a man who was blind, and now he can see! It’s incredible! This man was in the darkness. He had never glimpsed so much as a second of sunlight. He had never seen fall colors. He had never seen the faces of the people he loved. And now, he could see. The people were so caught up in the “hows” and “whys” that they lost the “what” – and that was the miracle.

Christians are often guilty of debating the gift God gave us to death. We argue about how it happened, and exactly why it happened. He fixate on which Bible versions best capture the stories and which theological terms best categorize them. We get so caught up in the “hows” and the “whys” that we completely miss the “what” – the miracle. God came down to us in human flesh. He lived among us; He ate our tables; He laughed at our jokes; He wept at our struggles; He died at the hands of our courts, carrying our sins on His innocent shoulders, and burst from the tomb victorious over death and sin. Soak it in. God did THAT for you and me. Don’t lose the miracle in the details.