Of Miracles and mustard seeds
April 11, 2009
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My grandfather was a minister for over 50 years. His official work in that area ended one day on the way to a speaking engagement when he pulled to the side of the road in the midst of a stroke. This stroke and other minor ones to follow left his right side paralysed. With physical therapy, he regained use of everything except his right hand. He could not use it, could not close it to hold a pen, a fork, a paintbrush, or anything else. In time, he moved to a retirement home for nursing care and taught himself to use his left hand as the muscles of the right hand atrophied beyond hope.
This happened in the early 1970's. Almost 10 years passed. On an Easter Sunday morning at about 2:00 am, he woke to hear someone saying, "William, move your hand." Again, the voice urged, "William, move your hand."
Granddad said that he looked to the doorway and saw Jesus standing there saying, "William, move your hand." Granddad looked down and closed the useless right hand tightly into a fist and opened it again. He looked up to thank his Lord only to find that Jesus was gone. Granddad grabbed the call button and began pressing it like mad, calling every nurse around. They came running because Brother Graham never called for help. By the end of the next day, everyone, resident and staff, knew of what had happened. By the end of the week, the muscles were sore from demonstrating that they did indeed work, which he was called on to do for doctors, nurses, and friends. His hand remained able to function for the last few years of his life. My own belief is that it was a kindness to a man who spent his life comforting others and reminding them of God's love, care, and comforting support.
Since that time, I have prayed for a special "Easter miracle" each year. The prayers find their way to me. Like all prayers, the answers are sometimes yes, sometimes no, and sometimes 'not just yet.' But I have learned a few things from these prayers. I would like to share them with you.
God loves us. More than anything, that is what we need to remember about Him. To be human and feel hunger and thirst, heat and cold, pain and despair, and to give His life for us just so that we could know of this great love, just so that we could be met with mercy and grace for each unkind thought and truly terrible deed (and everything that falls in between) - He loved and loves us enough to have come to Earth for us. He died to remove our sins. He will be there at the end to stand before us as advocate if we will allow him to. There is no point in the Bible where Jesus condemns even one person and calls that person unworthy - groups, yes, but individuals, never! He even forgives all who crucify Him as he is dying.
God will not act without our request. Ask and you shall receive. Parents know the feeling of stepping in with unwanted help and earning resentment. God is wiser than we are. He waits to be invited in because help is doing the things that are needed and wanted. We must ask. When we can do no more on our own, and even before that point, we can step back. We can "let go and let God." And God can do what we cannot.
We must believe. There were no microscopes in Galilee or Nazareth, electron or otherwise. Still there were mustard seeds. Tiny, yellow-brown, almost microscopic, but able to be seen, felt, held, and they were everywhere. Jesus told those around him that they could move mountains if they had only as much faith as [you could put into] a mustart seed. Tiny, almost nothing, but tangible and real. A faith that was as real as that seed and needed to be no larger in quantity than something you could hold on the tip of your finger. When Jesus went "home" to Nazareth, the people said, "Isn't that the carpenter's son? We know his parents, his brothers and sisters. He's no big deal." In the face of such mockery, there were no miracles, no faith. A woman in a crowd believed that if she could just touch the hem of His robe as it swept along the ground, it would be enough to cure her. She managed to get close enough to do this, and Jesus felt the healing power surge from him. His response to the woman was, "Go. Your faith has made you whole."
What can such faith do in our time? It can grow a heart valve where there was not one before. This is rather like growing another hand, I suspect, with very few instances on record - a miracle. It can allow me to meet a man in the grocery that should have died from an inoperable brain tumor twenty years ago (he is enjoying his retirement now), heal the ruptured ear drum of another, heal an aneurism that is dangerously close to the heart in another, allow a child with a life expectancy of 14 years to be at 25 and counting, and there are other examples -- and no, all of my prayers for healing do not end with healing. That is not always the best course for the person. But that is something I must take on faith.
Prayers for safety can result in finding that the roof that fell in on a building did so five minutes after everyone left the break area and the space holding 200 people on break five minutes earlier had just emptied when the atrium roof gave way under a pallet of new shingles. A barrel was tipped and rolled down a hill. It "happened" to stop in the exact spot needed to catch a tree limb that split and fell on that exact spot an hour later, savint a child's life. Other accidents that didn't happen? Too many to put here.
My Easter present to you is this knowledge. God loves you. He sent his Son to you. He is listening to you. You can just talk to him - that is what prayer is! You have a Ferrari in the garage. Are you walking because you don't want to take the Ferrari out and unleash its power?
Happy Easter.
HE IS RISEN!
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