The Miracle of the Holy Fire

Every Orthodox Easter at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, a fire leaps from the stones and lights candles at the Easter Vigil. It is an incredible miracle that happens like clockwork.

It is these simple miracles - a fire that alights regularly, or the Mary that bows to the cross on the roof of a Coptic Church in Zeitoun, Egypt - that testify so powerfully to faith. They are not enough to convince an unbeliever, sadly. But they make any believer cry out, "Abba! Father!"

Even simpler miracles abound in our lives every day. What trick of evolution led songbirds to sing so beautifully? How can the Milky Way be so bright and filled with tiny lights on a clear night in the country? How can sunsets be so different and yet consistently beautiful? And how is it God can be fully present to believers through a small piece of unleavened bread, such a humble way for such a great God to be manifest?

It is all such a mystery. And in mystery there is great beauty - God's ways are so inscrutable, and yet He is so plainly before us, weaving a magnificent tapestry no artist can equal.