One afternoon last month, while I was working on some mindless routine tasks, a song came on the internet radio station quietly playing in the background. I’d heard it before, a rather pretty, though somewhat melancholy, tune. I couldn’t make out all the lyrics—wasn’t trying to, either—but the repeated phrase, “it’s just an ordinary miracle” was hard to ignore.
“Interesting,” I thought.
“Seems like a contradiction,” I thought.
And then went on with my tasks at hand and forgot about it.
A week or so later, my 8-year-old grandson was in another part of the house watching the screen adaptation of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web — the live drama version, not the animated one. He’s been reading the book for school, so seeing the movie version was sort of a reward.
An interesting sidebar. He did the same thing with a couple of the Black Stallion books—read the books and then watched the movie adaptations. When asked which he liked better, movie or book, he chose the book. Glad to hear that!
Anyway, Charlotte’s Web was playing, but I was involved with something elsewhere and wasn’t paying attention. Yet I happened by the living room, mind on my project, when I heard that tune and the lyric, “an ordinary miracle.”
I needed to investigate the rest of the lyrics.
Here’s a portion, written by Glen Ballard and David Allan Stewart:
It’s not that unusual
When everything is beautiful
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
The sky knows when it’s time to snow
Don’t need to teach a seed to grow
It’s just another ordinary miracle todayIsn’t it remarkable?
Like every time a raindrop falls
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
Birds in winter have their fling
But always make it home by spring
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
It seems so exceptional
That things just work out after all
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
The sun comes up and shines so bright
And disappears again at night
It’s just another ordinary miracle today.
The song was recorded and made popular by Sarah McLachlan, a Canadian-born singer-songwriter. Apparently, she’s a “melancholy minstrel” with a “soulful mezzo-soprano voice” and most of her material is “somber ballads with deeply personal lyrics.”
“Ordinary Miracle” doesn’t seem to reflect “deeply personal lyrics.”
Or does it?
What do the lyrics tell us about the singer?
She’s observant of and overwhelmed by the beauty all around her.
She’s perplexed by the wintertime hydrological cycle–without anyone, apparently, telling the sky to snow, it just does. Spring rains and summer storms captivate her imagination, as well.
She’s bewildered by the germination of plants in the garden, flowers in the field, even weeds in the grass.
And what to make of the annual migration of millions of birds? How do they know when it’s time to leave, where to go, and time to return—even to the same nest left before winter set in?
The cycle of a day we all so easily take for granted fascinates her. When the sun disappears below the horizon and night settles in, will it give way to the sun’s return in a few hours? Historical observation says it shall. But what an amazing routine!
Could it mean…?
For what it’s worth, here’s my take on the song.
The “melancholy minstrel” is doing her best to express praise and glory to the Creator without ever acknowledging Him.
Here’s what I mean.
In a recent post, “The Sounds of Silence,” I wrote about the God-given function of creation to testify to the Creator, based on Psalm 19:1-6. And, by the way, as one example of this “speaking creation,” David describes the sun as a groom coming out of his chamber, running his race through the circuit of the heaven—a cycle repeated daily.
“The sun comes up and shines so bright, and disappears again at night….”
In other words, McLachlan is observing the wonders of God’s creation, which, if observed, will leave one in wonder and awe. If rightly observed, will leave one praising the Creator. Omit the Creator, though, and the observer is left with wonderment and awe, but ascribes it all to some kind of miracle. And since these things can be observed anywhere by anyone almost any time, they’re “ordinary miracles.”
But are they?
Not wanting to sound nit-picky or anything, but by definition, a miracle is anything but ordinary. A miracle suspends or overrules the ordinary for something truly extraordinary and supernatural.
Childbirth is an amazing, wonderful ordinary testimony to the incredible genius and power of our life-giving Creator. A 90-year-old woman getting pregnant and giving birth to a healthy baby boy (ala Sarah — Genesis 21:1-7) is an extraordinary miracle.
The sun’s circuit through the sky—or to be more “scientifically accurate,” the earth’s rotation and revolution around the sun—is an ordinary testimony to the Creator and Sustainer of the light-bearing objects in the heavens. But for the sun to remain fixed in the sky for a day (see Joshua 10:12-13)? Now that’s a miracle!
Living in northwestern Illinois, we’re familiar with the problems of drought or its opposite, deluge! Either can wreak havoc on crops and ruin harvests. The coming or withholding of rain is part of a cycle offering ordinary testimony to the Creator’s good gifts of provision for the sustenance of life. But when, as a form of judgment, God’s prophet declares there will be no rain until he says so, and then there is no rain until he says so, that’s a miracle.
Not far from where we lived in Shelburne, Vermont, snow geese on their annual pilgrimage from Canada would stop at the Dead Creek Wilderness Area for a brief respite before continuing south. A few months later, they head back to northern Canada. So much of bird migration is a mystery, but it’s nonetheless an ordinary testimony to God’s design for the preservation of His creatures. But for ravens—typically scavengers!—to find healthy food to bring to an exiled prophet twice daily for weeks is a miracle.
Speaking of crops, every year wheat grows on the plains, is harvested, processed, and ends up as flour in sacks on grocery store shelves. The seed that becomes the grain that feeds the hungry is an ordinary testimony to our Creator’s care for the needs of His creation. But for the God-man, Jesus to crumble five small barley loaves and produce food sufficient for over 5,000 people (see Matthew 14:13-21)—that’s a miracle!
The body’s ability to heal itself—from broken bones, torn flesh, invasive viruses—is a fascinating, but ordinary testimony to the Creator’s skill and wisdom in design. But the instantaneous giving of sight to one born blind (John 9:6-7)…the instantaneous healing of a limb crippled and paralyzed for years (John 5:5-9)…the instantaneous restoration to life of a lifeless corpse (John 11:39-44)—these are miracles!
Not in Sarah’s song, but what about love? The writer of Proverbs marvels at the way love works between a man and a woman; it’s one of four things “too wonderful” to comprehend (Proverbs 30:18-19). We’re hard-pressed to understand the dynamics of “falling in love,” but again, it’s all an ordinary testimony to our Creator who is Himself “love.”
Nevertheless, there is a miraculous love that defies all human comprehension and experience—the love of God for His fallen race.
John writes of it:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
— John 3:16–17 (ESV)
And:
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
— 1 John 4:9–10 (ESV)
Paul writes of it:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
– Romans 5:6–8 (ESV)
There is no human love like this. It’s miraculous! I trust it’s a miracle you have personally experienced. If not, as John writes above, “believe in him” (that is, Jesus) that you might.
In the end, even though it doesn’t have the same ring to it, the songwriters surely would’ve been more accurate if they titled their tune, “Ordinary Testimony.”
Let’s indeed be awed by the ordinary, everyday testimonies of God’s wisdom, power, and grace we see all around us. He’s truly worthy of praise for it all.
But then let’s also be profoundly moved by the true miracles from His hand—especially the miracle of saving grace, the expression of divine love.
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