Miracles are in the moment

 

In the midst of all we’re facing these challenging days, it’s pretty great to hear "I am God; there is no other!" (Isaiah 45:6).  It’s consoling to be invited to "Turn to me and be safe." (Isaiah 45:22).  It’s such a helpful Advent message because we too often tend to turn almost anywhere else but to our God—for relief, for comfort, for compensation—in our aloneness, our insecurity, our experience of isolation, in our awareness of our limitations, and, sometimes, in the face of our awareness of our contradictions and self-defeating patters.  In this season, we turn with a growing longing.  We long to be saved.  To long is to recognize, and feel intensely, what we’re missing, what’s out of balance, what’s in conflict within us.  We long to be saved.  We say, at a deeper and deeper level, "Come, Lord, Jesus.  Come into my heart, where I'm feeling more and more my need for You.  For You, and not for all the other things I turn to for my security, identity, comfort or relief."  With the words of Isaiah, we pray, "Please, Lord, let justice rain down on the earth!  Please, Lord, let justice spring up!" (Isaiah 45:8).  We can miss Advent if we prevent ourselves from experiencing a deep longing in our heart which leads us to cry out for Jesus to come into our hearts and make them whole, to give them His life and His zeal for His desires for the whole world.

Advent’s a good time to be reminded that while John the Baptist was in prison and facing his own death, he sent disciples to Jesus to ask, "Are you the one?" (Luke 7:18-23)

John the Baptist may have seemed like a man with too many screws loose to many people of his day.  He wasn’t successful at accumulating riches of this world, surviving on locusts and honey and wearing a hair shirt (Matthew 3:4), yet he persevered in a way that attracted many who became his devoted disciples.  If he was such a faithful man, one who knew that Jesus is the Christ even while still in Elizabeth’s womb (Luke 1:41), and who heard the testimony of God Himself (Matthew 3: 16-17), why did he send his disciples to check Him out?

In effect, John was saying, "I'm sitting here in jail.  My preaching led to this.  Are You the one?  Are you our Savior?"  Of course, we ask the same question when we feel like we're in trouble, or even when we get stressed or unhappy.  "Are you my Savior?"  Struggle can lead to debilitating doubt.  Instead of revealing to us that He is our only Savior, and there is no other, our difficulties can lead us to turn away from the One who comes to save us.

Jesus answered John’s, and our fears.  "Go tell John what you have seen and heard."  Jesus reminds John that He has fulfilled the promise - all these powerful healings are happening, and "the poor have the good news preached to them." The brokenhearted have heard the Good News of his love and mercy. "And, blessed is the one who takes no offense at me."  Jesus is saying there’s a blessedness in not letting all the bad stuff scandalize us and turn us away from Him.  He’s not the cause of evil in the world.  Our own selfishness, our greed, our lust for power is what leads to injustice and corruption and a world that no god could say, "I'm so happy this is the way things turned out."  But Jesus has come for healing, for mercy.  His coming in history won the victory over sin and death.  His coming to us on our Advent journey offers us freedom from what keeps us from Him and from one another.  The more we realize what we need, the more we crave it.  The more we sense we need a Savior, the more we beg, "Come," with open hearts.  The more we taste our poverty, the more we’ll hear the Good News proclaimed to us. He is the one; there is no other.

Jesus responded to John (and to us) with the facts: “Miracles are in the moment. If you can’t see the good that I’m doing in the world, you’re just not looking.  No offense, but this should be good enough for you.”