Then they were all
amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak
Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we
were born? ... we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of
God.” 12 So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another,
“Whatever could this mean?”
13 Others mocking said,
“They are full of sweet wine.”
Interesting isn't it? Two groups of people experience the
exact same thing and come to two wildly different conclusions. One group
acknowledges that something miraculous and unexplainable is happening. The
second group passes it off as the babble of drunk men. I have seen a few drunk
people through the years. I have yet to see one that develops a new language
under the influence of alcohol.
What this underscores is that some of us automatically
resist, dismiss, and/or reject anything we can't understand. Any time we
experience something our brain is automatically trying to process it and when
no explanation can be found our brain starts fabricating one. If a person comes
walking across the water towards us we conclude they are either on a solid
surface below the water that we can't see like a glass walkway or they are
being supported by an invisible harness because people can't walk on water.
Nearly 11 years ago I started having some health issues and
ended up with a diagnosis of bladder cancer. I told one of my best friends who
is all about science/logic and confused by the whole idea of faith. I had surgery
which ended up confusing my surgeon. The tumor was sent to pathology and the
report came back stating there were no live cancer cells. He went and analyzed
the tumor himself. He couldn't understand it. He knew he took a living growing
cancerous tumor from my bladder yet now it wasn't? He told me he didn't know
what to do with me or how to treat me. We decided to wait three months and then
check it out with a camera to see what was happening in there. Three months
later nothing was happening. 6 months later he put the camera in again. There
was a nurse assisting him and an intern training with him. He looked at the
image from the camera and with obvious amazement said he couldn't even tell any
surgery had ever been done. My bladder looked perfect inside. So I said him
"That's why they are called miracles."
He looked me right in the eye with the most intense look in
front of the nurse and the intern and said "This IS a miracle."
Eleven years later and not a single treatment and I am
completely healthy. The average life expectancy for bladder cancer is 3 to 5
years.
So I called my friend to tell him the news. I wasn't sure how
he would react. His response when I told him my surgeon said it is a miracle
was "There must be some kind of scientific explanation..." His brain
couldn't entertain any other possibilities.
That's why some in the crowd said "They are full of
sweet wine." Sweet wine was a highly intoxicating wine popular at that
time. It was an explanation developed by their brain to give some kind of
reason to what they were experiencing yet the reason made no sense. Drunk
people don't speak fluently in other languages they never spoke before.
Lesson:
Question your own thinking. Don't just believe the
explanations and conclusions your brain automatically churns out to explain
what you are seeing or hearing. Most of all be open to that which can't be
explained. Miracles happen. It's proof of the realm of the supernatural. There
is a reason despite all the rhetoric and theories that no one can explain how
life began on this planet. It isn't explainable.
When God decides to do something outside our normal our
brains are amazed, perplexed, and immediately attempt to explain it. Thinking
and reasoning are good but believing has its place at the table too "for
without faith it is impossible to please Him for we must believe that He is and
that He rewards those who diligently seek Him."
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