Do You Believe in Miracles?

Whenever I read that question I am always reminded of it being shouted at the end of the famous Olympic showdown between the then Soviet Union and the United States hockey teams. The spontaneous outburst arose because the U.S. victory had been a huge surprise.

However the question once again becomes relevant during this advent season because we are called to ponder the same question. Let's face facts, we live in an age of science and technology where miracles have taken a backseat with mythology and fairy tales as many scientists claim to be able to solve all the mysteries of the universe and debunk the core beliefs of faith. Faith in miracles is presented as a contradiction to reason and logic.

So how then are we as Christians to respond? I believe the answer lies not in what we know and understand but rather in the incompleteness of our knowledge and the limited nature of our human experience. The burden lies not on faith to prove the existence of miracles but rather upon science to disprove them. These may seem like flawed arguments but nonetheless they do bring to the center the discussion about what Christmas truly means more than any "Jesus is the reason for the season" bumper sticker.

The celebration of Christ's birth is itself a central declaration of faith. One cannot be a Christian and deny the virgin birth. While the empty tomb challenges our notions of death and the possibility of Jesus conquering death, the empty manger would also present us with an equally difficult question as we wonder how else could God have come into the world? There are many parts to this argument presented by far more intelligent theologians than I but at the core lies one simple fact: God became man to share in man's experience, and through that sanctification of man's experience bring man back to the divinity he was supposed to share with God from the beginning. It is not that human beings become like God in the same way we attempted in the garden and the fall, but rather we attain the true life we were gifted with but relinquished through sin.

Our images of God have been found in countless forms across history. We find God as the father, the man with the white beard, the judge and all-powerful creator. These are often comfortable because they provide a distance between us and God. But when the word becomes flesh we find that the distance becomes zero. God has become man. God shares in our innocence and frailty, our vulnerability and suffering. Turning to that God, the one who has lived a life like us, save sin, is a much harder God to accept. This God limits himself, surrenders his divinity in a way we never could. He takes on a face like our own, one that cry, smile, and yes even laugh. That God is almost a little too close to home.

This Christmas our focus should be not just on the miracle but on the actual gift given to us by God. Christ's coming into the world signals not just the arrival of our savior, but the closeness that God desires from us. He doesn't want us to keep him at arms length. He wants us to hold him in our arms. He wants us to be a family.