A Reminder

A friend of mine, Jeremy Spring,  posted a blog earlier this week that serves as a good reminder to all of us and I thought I'd share it.

It’s A Miracle.

Here in 2010 many of us have trouble believing in an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God because of how much science and industry have developed humanity in the last hundred years. Some of you may think that the people in ancient times would have had no problems believing in God because their minds were primitive and did not have the luxury of the scientific method that we now enjoy. Perhaps you’re convinced that those simple folk had no explanation for many things in life, so they just invented religion to cope with their circumstances. No, they reacted the same way us modern thinkers do; some believed their eyes, while others did not. I think we forget that the people in the Bible were real men and women, with real problems, real struggles, real doubt, and real faith.

Since there is no empirical evidence that God exists, (keep in mind there is no empirical evidence that He does not exist either) most folks just figure that if God were real, He would just show up and tell us the truth Himself. You see the thing is this; He already did that, and it did not pan out how you and I would think it would. 

Twelve men walked side by side with Jesus for three years and were eyewitnesses to Him performing miracles, dying on a cross, and defeating death through resurrection. But then at the end of Matthew’s gospel, the disciples meet the risen Christ on a mountainside and while some worshiped Him, others doubted. Miracles are not easy to believe, even when you are looking them straight in the eyes or touching them with your own hands. The miracle of Christ’s resurrection is a cornerstone of the Christian faith, but I can see why people have a hard time believing it. If Matthew admits that eyewitnesses had trouble believing it, then of course we are going to have some skeptics a couple thousand years later. Be encouraged though my friend, that even these men who doubted Christ to His face went on to build His church from the ground up, many becoming martyrs for our faith. It may take some time, but be patient, do not give up, because Christ can handle your doubt with care and He is not finished with you yet.

Jesus never used miracles as magic tricks to impress the public or coerce the masses. He was not in the business of changing minds, but transforming hearts. His miracles did not simply lead to a cognitive decision to believe, but to worship, to awe, and to wonder.

Our modern brains think of miracles as the suspension of natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order. The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it. Jesus came to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken. His miracles are not just proofs that he has power but also wonderful previews of what he is going to do with that power. Previews at the movie theater are often my favorite part, I love getting a foretaste of something great to come. Miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but also a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming.

Everything sad is going to come untrue and all the might-have-beens will be.