the miracle of christmas.
we see, hear, and use this phrase all the time when talking about christmas. and while the virgin birth of the Son of God and redeemer of the world is certainly significant, it is one of many miracles he’s had his hand in…a list that continues to grow even to this day. i have the privilege of being a part of an organization that sends hundreds of people out into the world every year to continue the miraculous works Jesus started. today, i want to share some of those stories with you – stories of real people’s real lives being really changed by real encounters with a very real and alive Jesus.
Like Kelly DeCaster, who met Zechariah and Julio in Honduras – and then Jesus changed their lives.
“[Zechariah] was blind. Now he sees. It’s simple yet unbelievable. Zechariah had been nearly blind for 10 years. His eyelids remained closed due to non-use. After we prayed we asked him to open his eyes. His eyelids raised an we saw his eyes fighting to look into ours. He said, ‘I couldn’t see, but now I see well.’ His joy was revealed in his tears.”
“We met Julio at the nursing home we visited. He was one of the first people we talked with. We learned that a stroke had left the whole right side of his body non-functioning. We prayed. His body was restored. He stood up to walk. Before we left, he was walking around the room holding his walker in the air.”
Or Ruth Wilson, who saw Jesus transform a life in India.
“On the left side of the room was a man laying on a mat. I immediately felt like I was in ‘bible times.’ The woman who asked us to pray was this man’s wife. She explained he had a stroke 2 years before and hadn’t walked since… We are all praying loud now: begging him to move. We finish praying and no one moves again. Nance nudges me and says, ‘Well, should he get up and walk?’ HOMEBOY FREAKING STANDS UP AND WALKS AROUND THE ROOM. He was healed in Jesus’ name!!!!! The family rejoices and those in the door stood there with wide eyes.”
Then there’s Stephanie May in Nepal. She saw Jesus heal a deaf man.
“I saw a man being pushed forward by what looked to be his son, but he looked embarrassed and kept shying away, not wanting to go up. I heard God say, ‘Go pray for him!’ So I walked up to him and mimed to the best of my ability asking if I could pray for him. Having absolutely no idea what I was doing, I placed my hands over his ears and began to pray that God would open his ears. Every few minutes, the man’s entire body would begin to convulse, and so I held his head tighter, praying louder. I prayed for probably twenty minutes, until finally, something happened.
“We mimed to him that somebody was going to go behind him and clap and that he was to copy whatever clap he heard. Someone went a god eight feet behind him and clapped. The man clapped. (I looked around accusingly at the group that was circling us to make sure they didn’t cheat and help him.) The person behind him clapped three times. And the man clapped three times. He could hear. God healed a completely deaf man…and I was the one who got to pray for him. I got to be a part of it. I still cannot believe this.”
Stories like these are absolutely ridiculous.
They’re ridiculous, because just like the idea that a virgin could have a baby or a man could walk on water or the dead could be resurrected, most of the time they make no sense in the context of our daily lives. They’re overlooked, bypassed, and downplayed – written off as unnatural and illogical.
I think Christmas is amazing because it’s a time when we stop and take a minute to think about the ways miracles have impacted our lives. We reflect on the moments in time, in our history and the history of the world, when the inexplicable has overshadowed the explicable – when the supernatural and the natural have overlapped, intersected, and interacted. We give ourselves permission to momentarily suspend logic and consider something greater.
And it is in this reflection that we find the hope to believe that there could be more that what we seem to see every day. That good is ultimately more powerful than evil. That it is better to give than to receive. That the family and friendships we possess are more valuable than the things.
That a baby born to a virgin could grow up to not only change the world, but save it. To save us.
So I encourage you to explore the irrational, illogical, and inexplicable. I dare you to consider the amazing, unbelievable, and extraordinary. And I pray that the miraculous would find you in new ways this week.
“It is therefore inaccurate to define a miracle as something that breaks
the laws of Nature. It doesn’t…If God annihilates or creates or
deflects a unit of matter He has created a new situation at that point.
Immediately all Nature domiciles this new situation, makes it at home
in her realm, adapts all other events to it.” (CS Lewis in Miracles)
the laws of Nature. It doesn’t…If God annihilates or creates or
deflects a unit of matter He has created a new situation at that point.
Immediately all Nature domiciles this new situation, makes it at home
in her realm, adapts all other events to it.” (CS Lewis in Miracles)
