A garden transforming from dormancy through renewal, growth, flowering, and fruitfulness is nothing short of a miracle. The unique shapes, colors, and time tables for each specific plant’s growth and blossoming add to this amazing progression…And garden pots remind me of Christ’s first recorded miracle.
Meeting the urgent need of an emerging wedding feast’s beverage crisis, Christ changed six ceremonial, stone pots of water into wine. That was how he did things. Circumstances changed instantaneously when he prayed, spoke, or touched! Physical, emotional, and spiritual needs were met. Renewal and healing were immediate. He short circuited natural processes. Time was bypassed.
Life was forever different for those who met and believed Jesus. Five loaves and two fish overflowed baskets with enough food for a horde of thousands! The paralyzed immediately stood, ran, danced! The sick were physically healed! Threatening winds and seas were becalmed! Dead bodies returned to life! More importantly, the unnoticed and marginalized were seen and heard. Emotional and spiritual healing came to those who believed and trusted in Christ’s power to intervene for their need. The mentally distraught became sane. The demon-possessed were released from uncontrollable forces. Sinners were forgiven and freed from the bondage of disordered lives. Thirsting, wandering, restless, empty, hungry souls looking for answers, meaning, and forgiveness were guided and filled. Weak and conflicted disciples became dedicated, confident warriors for God’s Kingdom.
Jesus is still in the business of changing lives. He understood the depth of our need for love, acceptance, forgiveness, and freedom from condemnation. So, he willingly and graciously paid a great price to redeem us with a transforming power that quenches our thirsting, hungry spirits, sustaining us with “living water” and “the bread of life.” An old hymn expresses the authority and power of Jesus with these words: “When Jesus comes the tempter’s pow’r is broken/When Jesus comes the tears are wiped away/He takes the gloom and fills the life with glory/For all is changed when Jesus comes to stay.“
The Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthians Church of Christ’s selflessness: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Through his humble, holy perfection and amazing grace and by our belief, he has taken our sin, shame, and guilt upon himself in order that we can be released from the condemnation that our enslaving addictions, moral weaknesses, and disordered thinking and behaviors deserve.
Jesus described faith to Nicodemus as an inner redemptive change by God’s Spirit. He spoke of being “ born again” by belief. (John3; 3:16) The Apostle Paul used the descriptives of “newness of life” and “a new creation” to explain this forgiven, redeemed, restored life divinely transformed by belief and a mindset with different priorities because of this changed inner life. Following Christ progressively forms one into the God-intended image meant for humanity to possess. But that path is a tortuous one filled with weaknesses and failures and cannot be achieved by personal concerted efforts alone.
Humanistic philosophies, attempts to attain personal divinity, performance of religious rituals, duties, and acts of penance, legalistic theories and behaviors, or acts of social justice do not make the cut. Jesus made it clear that redemptive changes are the result of Spirit empowered faith. Although most human endeavors for goodness recognize the need for harnessing our base natures and practicing kindness toward one another, they fall into the category of self righteous “filthy rags” according to the prophet Isaiah: “…all our righteous acts are as a filthy rag; and all of us wither like the leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind” (Isaiah 64:4). Those are tough words for people depending on their personal goodness for salvation.
The protective work of Christ at the cross provides the only holiness that God requires for one to stand in His presence. That is available to and imputed to all who will choose and cherish it.
Redemption and transformation! Miracles never cease! Especially when Jesus walks into one’s life.
Sweet Words from Maine 