It’s Christmas time, and for Christians, Christmas is the season to celebrate the miraculous: We believe and sing about how the eternal God took on human flesh. The doctrine of the incarnation teaches that the sleeping child in the manger was both fully man and fully God -“hypostatic union” – and he will always and forever be this way. You cannot get any more miraculous than that. When the angel Gabriel described to the young virgin mother how she would conceive a child through the Holy Spirit, he said to her in Luke 1:37, “Nothing is impossible with God.”
Christian teaching throughout the centuries has believed in the Almighty’s omnipotence (all-powerful abilities), he can do anything. If he can speak the world into existence, split the Red Sea in half with the breath of his mouth, and cause manna to come from heaven, he can surely cause a virgin to give birth to the Christ child.
Miracles can happen because God exists.
And since God is the same yesterday, today and forever, miracles are and will always be possible. God can heal, answer specific prayers and regenerate a dead spirit into an eternal child of his own. All of these specific events are considered miracles, occurrences out of the ordinary, and we believe God is still doing these things daily.
While most Christians agree that God has the power to do whatever and whenever he wants in our world, there is quite a split in Christian camps when it comes to understanding our ability to compel God to do exactly what we want when we want it. “Yes God can do the miraculous, but will he do the miraculous when I want him to?” Or more practically speaking, “If I demand, and sing loud, and cry, and run around a church auditorium while people all have their arms raised, is God obligated to do what we request?” Are miracles like Amazon with next day or same-day delivery?
Just one week ago a major case study on miracles happened: A 2-year old girl died and for a whole week her mom petitioned people at her church to pray for her daughter’s resurrection. (See: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/evangelical-parents-of-a-young-girl-who-died-social-media) One news article says, “In the days since Olive’s death, both Kalley and the church have continued to post on Instagram calling for others to join them in praying for her to be resurrected. “Day 3 is a really good day for resurrection,” Kalley wrote in a more recent Instagram post. “Thank you for your faith-filled declarations, keep them coming.” Worshippers have been praying for her resurrection at lively public gatherings at Bethel Church all week, and videos of the gatherings have been posted by several church members. Within a few days, Kalley’s account following more than doubled. She now has over 261,000 followers.”
The pastor of the church declared, “People truly believe that a collective, online effort can resurrect Olive from the dead…Our church also believes in the accounts of healing and physical resurrection found in the Bible (Matthew 10:8), and that the miracles they portray are possible today.”
So the church prayed, wept, cried out, sang, demanded and even posted non-stop online requests to Almighty God hoping and expecting for a present-day resurrection to occur. But after ten days, nothing.
So, while this situation is tragic and heartbreaking, disturbing questions do arise: Did the parents not have enough faith? Did they not cry out loud and long enough? Has the work of the miraculous ceased? Does God no longer care?
I have often asked these questions for 40 some years as I watched my own sister suffer under a debilitating disease called Rett Syndrome. While she is 59 years of age, her mind and reasoning capacity has stayed perpetually in the 4 months old range. My dad prayed, my mom prayed, my siblings prayed, churches prayed, faith healers prayed, and even nuns wearing black habits prayed. I even had her in the room when Benny Hinn was on the television screen hoping a bolt of Holy Spirit lightning would shoot from the screen and heal her…and still…nothing. And please don’t tell me that I am afraid of the Holy Spirit’s power to heal, that is so demeaning to my desire to see my sister well.
So what is going on? Are miracles only for a young virgin girl on Christmas Day? Some would even say since they don’t see miracles happen today they probably didn’t happen in the past. And that would mean our whole foundation of belief is standing on lies. Can anyone make sense out of this?
From my years of theological study, I think people forget two things when it comes to the miraculous: Purpose and Problem.
God does everything for a purpose, even miracles. Scripture is clear about what God wants, “He wants us to trust him, love him, walk with him, by faith.” And if miracles can help in that cause God will use them, but if they deter from that cause he will stop using them. He cares more about forgiveness than giving bling and an exciting show. Let me give you an example, I call it the “Engagement Ring Parable”:
“John loved Sarah, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. After two years of dating, spending time, sharing their hearts he knew she was the one for him. So on a snowy Christmas Eve night, he drove to her house wearing his best suit and carrying a small velvet-blue box in his coat pocket. Walking up to Sarah’s front door, he was more anxious than he could ever remember. “Will she say yes?”
After three soft taps, the door slowly opened and there stood Sarah in a gorgeous red dress, she looked amazing! And without hesitation, John took to a knee, grabbed the small blue box, opened it up and said, “Sarah, will you marry me?”
In utter astonishment, Sarah looked at the sparkling crystal in the box. Without saying a word she grabbed the large white jewel and placed it on her finger. Twirling on her toe she held it up to the light gazing at its beauty.
“So, is that a yes?” John nervously asked. But Sarah gave no answer, she was lost in wonder at the sublime enchantment of the ring. “Sarah, can you hear me?” After a few more seconds Sarah rushed up the stairway of her house to go to her bedroom to look in the mirror so she could get a better look. After entering her room she slammed and locked the door behind her.
John remained kneeling at the threshold wondering what just happened.”
That is the parable, and I want to bring out a few points.
- John loved Sarah so he wanted to bless her with a beautiful ring.
- The ring had a purpose, engagement. To further the relationship.
- All Sarah saw was the ring. That is all she wanted.
- She forgot the ring was about a relationship, in fact, her enchantment with the ring meant her relationship with John mattered little if nothing at all.
Moral of the story, some people don’t want Jesus as much as they want the gifts he gives. Jesus is God so he can do anything, but all Jesus really wants is to be with you. Look at what he says in John 14:1-3:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
Did you catch that? He is preparing a place for us so we will spend eternity with him. That is the goal. That is the real miracle. I will break it down really quickly for you.
- Jesus came to die and rise again to first deal with our sin problem. Sinners cannot dwell with a Holy God so he first needed to deal with that.
- After Jesus ascended to heaven he sent his Holy Spirit to gather a people for himself (the church) and spread the message through his chosen messengers, the apostles.
- The Holy Spirit worked overtime in the early church through signs, miracles and wonders to prove that the apostles’ message was legit. (See Hebrews 2:3-4, this is called the rearview mirror passage that expresses the main purpose of gifts.)
- The Gospel is meant to compel hearts to love God as we wait for him to rescue us on the last day.
- God answers prayer because he loves his own, and he will use miracles to reach people who doubt the Gospel is the real message. But once a person believes the Gospel, the Holy Spirit’s greatest work is in conforming me to be more like Christ.
Will he use miracles along the way to help us grow? Sure, but miracles have an inherent problem – they captivate the people who are in it for the wrong reasons. Jesus said it quite clearly in Matthew 16:4, “A wicked and perverse generation ask for a sign.” And in John 20:29 Jesus says, “Blessed are you who have not seen and believe.”
Faith offers something miracles can never offer, learned trust. When you take God at his word without seeing it is the essence of trust, and trust is the basis of real worship. It is easy to be amazed at the miraculous, but it is true love to hang in there with God even when you don’t see a thing. Look at the most amazing paragraph of scripture concerning this issue. You have to really let it sink in to understand the immense lesson it is teaching. Hebrews 11:13-16:
“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
Most of the saints in the Old Testament did not “receive the things promised.” What? You mean they died before they experienced everything they hoped for? Yes. And the reason is simple, they knew that the earth in its present condition is not our eternal home. We are living here in exile. Waiting for the day when Jesus makes everything right and new. In the meantime, we spread the Gospel of forgiveness and peace with God hoping people will believe so they too can become citizens of heaven.
And those of us who still believe without seeing, make God proud! Listen to that phrase, “He is not ashamed to be called our God!” That is it! The highest goal for the true believer. If God needs to give me things, miracles, in order for me to live for him, that is rather shameful because ultimately it is not love. Like a girl who is more impressed with an engagement ring than having a fiancé.
Finally, let me ask this: What is the real miracle? That one day, this old body will be remade and restored, and I will be able to see with my very own eyes the face of the living God who died for me. Isn’t that enough? Job writes in 19:25-27:
I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
