The Real Miracle

Beethoven is my favorite composer - maybe it's because my grade school music teacher, Ms. Rosenecker, introduced the class to his music before the others, or maybe it is because I really dig his hair - I don't know.
But what I do know about Ludwig Van Beethoven is that he was one impressive man who, within himself, had a true gift and communicated an outworking of God's miraculous hand.

Disagree?

Ludwig Van Beethoven was a very moody and sometimes quite angry man; it's even said that he died with his fist clenched to the heavens, shaking it in anger to God.
Well, I don't know about that but what I do know is that Beethoven, at the height of his career in his adult life, began to go deaf. 
For a composer and a musical genius, it would have been an enormous tragedy.

Today, we can plug in an iPod and download Beethoven's 9th Symphony and listen to it with pleasure, just as he wrote it. 
And it is this 9th Symphony where we see and hear a miracle of God communicated through a flawed believer to us through the very common medium of music.
You see, Beethoven was completely deaf when he wrote that symphony; he never heard a note of it audibly; yet, he did hear it in his mind.
And what Beethoven heard in his mind, he wrote on paper; from the paper it was communicated through instruments which joined together and formed the symphonic beauty. What I now hear in my ears, he only heard with his mind but has given me the gift of the experience of pleasure. 

Amazing, isn't it?

But I will tell you that this is how all miracles really happen - through willing vessels using the gifts God gave them and communicating truth to others.
In doing so, you will find that God uses very practical mediums to communicate to His children.

In our worst times and in the greatest struggles, many will often ask why God doesn't intervene.
In our suffering, we will often look to Job or some other Biblical character, wanting God to speak to us in some way. That's not an unnatural thought or desire.
Truth is, for all of Job's problems, he did finally receive a Word from God; but we usually do not - not audibly anyway.
But the evidence He gives of His presence among us is just as real as any burning bush.

Every Christian MUST learn and needs to be reminded that God has communicated through His Son to us; His presence is constantly with us and within us through the Holy Spirit.
And while we desire a visible presence of God to manifest, like a Burning Bush, we have something much greater and God is much closer because you simply can't get much closer to a person than when you dwell within them.

While our prayers may at times be distorted, our reading of His Word confused, and our aid to His children imperfect - it does not lessen the value of His miraculous entry into our hearts nor does it lessen the greatness of His love which He desires to shine through our good works for His glory.

After the ascension of Jesus Christ, Peter and the apostles were in Jerusalem for Pentecost. It was there that God decided to give evidence of Himself in a visible manner.
On that day, through the HS, God chose to evidence Himself through the human phenomenon of language.
To those watching the spectacle, the Christians appeared to resemble drunks; today, we might even say that the group was caught up in the hysteria of the moment. 
Theologically, this is called 'Glossolalia,' the speaking in tongues; but this gift was not a gift of the tongue, it was a gift of the ear.

What was happening was something of a divine nature confined to a practical, human expression; thus, when Peter spoke, if you were an Egyptian, you heard Egyptian; a Greek, in Greek and if you were from anywhere else, you heard his speech in your language.
One mistake that is made is that some Christians will reduce this miracle to a practical explanation. 
The truth is that if you as a Christian attempt to reduce everything God does in your life down to a practical explanation, you distort the greatness of God and the witness for the Risen Lord will suffer.

Truthfully, Christians have made life harder for other believers by explaining miraculous things away as natural phenomenons.
But just like the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every believer, sometimes God's supernatural acts are expressed in seemingly natural ways.
We should never lessen the importance of a supernatural act happening in a natural way.

The reverse is also true, we should not call something miraculous or supernatural if it is not.
If we do, then it lessens the validity of the supernatural and God's presence in the world.
But if we do reduce the supernatural and miracles down to only things we can explain, then all of human behavior will become hormones and chemistry and we will lose the thrill and joy of mystery, free will and romance.

Spiritually in Christ, things do miraculously happen supernaturally.
Now, when I put a sermon together with my thoughts, resources and writings, I am not miraculously lifted to heaven on a cloud as Jesus dictates what I am to say.
But the spiritual nature of the message I preach is just as real and trustworthy.
Likewise, the acts of faith that we engage in on a daily basis may not cause thunder and lighting to flash across the night sky but the acts of prayer, fasting, of observing the ordinances/sacraments and proclaiming the Gospel are true holy carriers of the supernatural by faith.

When Christ ascended, He let behind His Spirit to indwell the individual believers in His Word; today, we are called 'the Church.' We remain as His Body on the earth.
As such, our goodness becomes His goodness originating from the throne of God Himself.
And whatever we do, we do to the Lord just as He said - 'Whatever you have done unto the least of these, you have done unto Me...'

And that is the goal of Creation - for all of who God is to dwell within us and become a part of us. 
A miracle is not an invasion from heaven; trust me, I know what it is like to have a miracle performed in your own body. Once you're healed, you still have to recover. 
It isn't an invasion, rather, a miracle is a glimpse into the spiritual world as to how things were suppose to be in our world long before the fall of man.
When the supernatural takes place, we are getting a small look into the end and further into eternity.

As for now, that God would choose to indwell and work His will through me or any flawed human being; saving us from sin and delivering us to Himself for His own pleasure...
Well, that's the real miracle of the ages.

Until next time, win one for the good guys.