Miracles

by Eric Metaxas

  Similarly at the resurrection, the life of God breaks through and cracks death in twain, like a powerful tree growing up through a sidewalk and splitting the cement. There too eternity enters time. Christians believe in that moment all of reality was changed, was redeemed. Through that act of God, resurrecting Jesus in the tomb, a pathway was opened between Heaven and Earth, between this realm—the realm of time and space—and the realm of eternity. Suddenly there was a way between them, and that way was Jesus himself, crucified and now resurrected. And because of this breaking of the boundary between these two realms, every human being who ever lived could now make that journey too. Heaven had suddenly been opened to us. Jesus had opened it and we could take that path.

  There had once been no barrier between us and God and eternity. In the Garden of Eden, God walked with Adam and Eve. There was no separation between him and his creation. But in the Fall, however one interprets that story, the liberty we once had came to an abrupt end. It is the infinitely tragic story of our leaving eternity and God’s presence, of our being exiled from our true home. So the story of Jesus is the story of Jesus rescuing us and bringing us back where we belong, where we were created to be in the first place. There’s a grand poetry at work there. It’s as if Jesus snuck from Heaven to Earth in that tiniest of life-forms, the single-celled human being, and then he grew and grew, but to get out of this world and to get back to eternity he would have to die. But he was willing to do it for us. And after he died, God resurrected him and the path between Heaven and Earth was again opened. Jesus could return to Heaven, and now he could take us there with him.

  If we accept what he did by faith, we have already returned to Heaven and are able to live without that barrier between Heaven and Earth. We are by faith able to experience the miraculous as a natural part of our existence. And our new life becomes a foreshadowing and a promise of what we will do fully when we die, when we return once and for all to the place for which we were created, beyond time and space.

  • • •

  The idea that there is a God who loves us and who desires to help us be what we were always meant to be, who wants us to grow into the full measure of what he originally created us to be, is a staggering concept. That this God is not far from us, but is at all times right next to us, wanting to communicate with us and wanting to intervene in our lives for our benefit, is about as “empowering” an idea as anyone could imagine. So the question one must ask is why we would ignore this idea or even actively resist it. What could keep us from tapping into the benefit of the greatest resource imaginable?

  The first answer has to be simple ignorance. Our culture is so deeply materialistic that it makes thinking about God along these lines seem “unscientific.” Or it portrays God as our enemy and not as our friend and advocate. It portrays God as someone to be avoided, as someone who wishes to constrict us rather than as someone who offers us greater liberty. But there is a grain of truth in every lie, and the grain of truth in this lie is that the God of the Bible is indeed very much like a parent. In fact the Bible says that he is our heavenly parent. So the question is, in what relationship are we with this parent? Are we the rebellious adolescent who doesn’t trust that the parent actually has our best interests in view and is therefore someone to be resisted or avoided? Or can we believe that this parent is someone who has resources we do not have, who has wisdom we can never have, who knows us better than we will ever know ourselves, and who loves us and wants to bless us beyond our wildest imaginings? Are we perhaps confusing God with our own parents or with authority figures in our lives whom it was not wise to trust? Ultimately we have to shake free of our preconceived notions and make an informed choice on this most important of all issues. We cannot let the people who ruined our lives as children continue to ruin our lives today by eclipsing our view of the God who loves us, by keeping us from the source of all we are actually looking for. Is it too much to say that actually making this choice in a way that is informed by the facts would be life-changing? As ever, we have to ask that cliché of a question: Do we really want to change? Aren’t we at least a little bit afraid of the implications? What if we are wrong?

  In the face of these questions we can look to Dietrich Bonhoeffer for an answer. He is reported to have once said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.” He went on to say, “Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” The principle at work is that we think we can avoid making a decision, but we cannot. We may fool ourselves into thinking we are avoiding the question, but to avoid the question, to avoid answering the question, is to answer the question. Whether we acknowledge it or don’t. We fool ourselves into thinking that to table the question or to wait longer before we answer it and make our decision is wisdom, when in reality it is self-delusion and folly. But the great river of culture in which we live is flowing in this wrong direction. It tells us that “agnosticism” is the wisest course, that not deciding is the smartest decision. It says that behaving as though the universe is all there is is the safer course. It is easy to float along the wide river of agnostic, materialistic, naturalistic culture. But into our lazy reverie Jesus makes the statement: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” Can we pretend we didn’t read those words? Can we pretend we actually believe Jesus didn’t say them or if he did say them that he is some sort of religious maniac who should be ignored?

  This is the difficult situation in which we find ourselves. Everything says that to open ourselves to this God is to take a great risk, and it is a risk. But what if the facts say that taking this risk is a far safer bet than not taking the risk? What if swimming to shore to stop floating down the great river along which we have been traveling is a lifesaving action, because the river is getting stronger and faster with every second, and eventually we won’t be able to get to shore because the current will be far too powerful and swift, and only then will we hear the roaring waterfall that will destroy us?

  That is the question.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book was not my idea, so if someone finds fault with it, you may evermore direct them to the short, first clause of this sentence. In truth, the idea for the book arose in a conversation with my editor, Brian Tart, with whom I matter-of-factly shared the story of a miracle I had experienced. We were having lunch in SoHo (for which cliché one must apologize), when no sooner had I finished telling my story than he brightly and strongly suggested that I must write a book on miracles, even helpfully promising to send me an outline for such a book. Flattered at his insistence that I must write the book, I nonetheless firmly rejected the idea, not just initially, but every time he put it forward in the months that followed. But Mr. Tart was very persistent, finally saying that if I absolutely couldn’t see my way to writing it, he must and would find someone else to do so, because he thought a book on this topic that important. Inasmuch as anything can be said to have done so, it may have been this idea that began to prize me from the rock to which I had been affixed.

  I also wish to thank and my wife, Susanne, for her role in helping me decide to write this book. Without her encouragement to write it, it wouldn’t exist.

  Finally, I wish to acknowledge the spiritual guidance over the years of the pastors and people of Saint Paul’s Church in Darien, Connecticut, and Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York. The openness of these communities and their leaders to the miraculous, and their willingness to breathe—boldly and cautiously both—the rarified air of that other world, has for me and countless others, been life-changing.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Eric Metaxas is the New York Times #1 bestselling author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and the acclaimed Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery (“spectacular* . . . a crackling bonfire of truth and clarity”*). His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. After graduating from Yale with a
n English degree, Metaxas published humor in The New York Times and The Atlantic and was a writer for Rabbit Ears Productions and VeggieTales. He has written more than thirty children’s books, including the bestsellers Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving and It’s Time to Sleep, My Love, illustrated by Nancy Tillman. Metaxas speaks to tens of thousands around the United States and internationally each year. He was the keynote speaker at the 2012 National Prayer Breakfast and at the 2013 Canadian National Prayer Breakfast, and he has testified before Congress on anti-Semitism in Europe. Metaxas is the founder and host of Socrates in the City, the acclaimed series of conversations on “Life, God, and other small topics,” featuring Malcolm Gladwell, Dr. Francis Collins, N. T. Wright, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Dick Cavett, and Sir John Polkinghorne, among many others. He is a senior fellow and lecturer at large at the King’s College in New York City, where he lives with his wife and daughter. You can visit his website at www.ericmetaxas.com.

  *. The Catholic definition of “official” miracles, which involves a complex and rigorous assessment of the potential miracle by experts both scientific and theological, is not the definition we will be dealing with in this book, although it is safe to assume that any miracles “officially” recognized by the Vatican under that definition would indeed be considered miracles under the wider definition we are using here.

  *. I first said this publicly in an “I Am Second” video. It is viewable at www.iamsecond.com.

  *. For a spectacular treatment of this subject, pick up Thomas Howard’s glorious book Chance or the Dance? It’s one of the finest books I’ve ever read.

  *. Much of what we say in this chapter can be found in Dr. John Lennox’s excellent book Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are Missing the Target, which we heartily recommend to anyone wishing more on this and other worthy subjects.

  *. We have twice now had him as our guest at Socrates in the City, where he spoke on “Belief in God in an Age of Science” and “Can a Scientist Pray?”

  *. For a full treatment of this subject, see The Soul of Science by Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton.

  *. Author’s italics.

  *. For a fuller list of those variables and some non-layman-like explanations as to why they are vital to the existence of life, we recommend Hugh Ross’s excellent books The Fingerprint of God and The Creator and the Cosmos.

  *. The lowest energy level of an element.

  *. I’ve known Joni from a number of meetings and have heard her talk about some of the things mentioned here. She’s also written about them. But it was at the studios of 100 Huntley Street in Toronto that I first heard the details of her accident, after my on-camera interview of her.

  *. In my 2012 National Prayer Breakfast speech, which may be viewed at www.ericmetaxas.com, I discuss the difference between “True Faith” and “Dead Religion.”

  *. In his letter to the believers in Philippi, Saint Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”

  *. Though not mentioned nearly as often, Jesus raised two others from the grave besides his friend Lazarus. They are the widow’s son at Nain and the daughter of Jairus.

  *. Of the 31,102 verses in the Bible, it is the shortest.

  *. Interestingly, the father of modern China, whom we know as Sun Yat-Sen, went to Hawaii to learn English and came to faith at the church that Christine’s great-great-grandfather cofounded. (Sun Yat-Sen is revered by both the Nationalists of Taiwan and the Communists as the founding father of the Republic of China.)

  *. Many thousands have experienced these strange physical phenomena during services like this over the decades. Even Jonathan Edwards in the early eighteenth century recorded similarly strange phenomena during his own preaching, as did George Whitfield. I have only witnessed anything like it once, with my own brother, John, in a chapel at Yale in 1991. As I was praying that he would “receive the Holy Spirit,” he shook involuntarily and began weeping and praising God, lifting his hands up. It was a supernatural experience, but also a profoundly and palpably physical one. When I later asked him what was happening to him, he said that it felt as though “everything bad that was in me was flowing out of me and God was pouring into me.”

  *. Harald Bredesen (1918–2006) was a legendary figure in the Christian Charismatic movement, which believes in “the baptism in the Holy Spirit” and “speaking in tongues.”

  *. In Ezekiel, chapter 47, Ezekiel has a vision of a river that heals all it touches and brings life out of death.

  *. Paul Teske’s complete story can be found in his book, Healing for Today.

  *. David came to Canada after a deeply troubled childhood, which is recounted in his book. He eventually got a PhD from the University of Toronto and has by now devoted over twenty-five years to a holistic ministry in Ghana. It is a very poverty-stricken area, but David and his ministry have built several hospitals and have brought agricultural development to the region. They have planted thirty-seven churches.

  *. Just before this book went to press I bumped into Doug Webster at Central Presbyterian. He told me that he had just been to Ghana and had seen Simon, whose foot was still healthy and who was still the principal driver for the ministry.

  *. David Bloom was the former NBC White House correspondent who in 2003 died of an embolism in Iraq while embedded with the troops to cover the war. My story about him and his involvement with NCS can be found at http://www.ericmetaxas.com/writing/essays/but-sweet-will-be-the-flowerthe-life-and-death-of-nbcs-david-bloom.

  *. This idea of “standing on God’s promise” or “standing on God’s Word” stems from the idea that the Bible is the “Word of God.” Although the New Testament Greek word “Logos” is translated in English as “Word,” with a capital W, the real meaning is infinitely richer. In a standard dictionary, like Merriam-Webster, the first definition of “Logos” is “the divine wisdom manifest in the creation, government, and redemption of the world and often identified with the second person of the Trinity [Jesus].” The second definition of Logos is “reason, that in ancient Greek philosophy is the controlling principle in the universe.” So the word means far more than just “word” as in “the words of the Bible.” It means God’s wisdom and God’s “ordering principle” for the universe. Furthermore, in the New Testament, Jesus is referred to as the “Logos tou Theou”—the “Word of God.” So if someone talks about “believing the Word of God,” or “standing on God’s Word,” they typically mean believing what God has declared in the Bible.

  *. Long after this, Paul and Lisa learned that their Honduran nanny, a woman of strong Christian faith, had known something was wrong and was praying daily over their home and their children during this time.

  *. While this event was occurring, Paul believed it was Jesus who had come into his home in response to his invitation. He has since come to understand that the white figure, which had no visible facial features, may possibly have been not Jesus but the Holy Spirit or an angel of the Lord, who are often associated with the color white and often appear as “faceless” figures in dreams and visions.

  *. Another popular misconception is that angels are “spirit guides,” but there is nothing in the Bible to support this view. In fact, if anything, the Bible soberly instructs us to be beware of contact with any spiritual beings unless we are utterly clear that they are sent by the God of the Bible and come in his name and for his purposes. The Bible says that Satan comes “as an angel of light,” and warns us to be very careful and to “test the spirits.”

  *. Sponsored by Prison Fellowship, these parties are held each December so that people can donate presents to the children of prisoners.

  *. The Evangelical Christian Publishing Association.

  *. She told those of us around the table at the dinner that she has had three such experiences in her life, and each of them was so holy and so sacred she simply felt she couldn’t share it. It was too intimate to share. In fact, she said that it was years after she had been married and more than twenty-five years after it happened,
that she finally was able to share it with her beloved husband, Dietrich.

  *. This is a term some churches use to describe the phenomenon of someone being overwhelmed by a feeling that God has “touched” them. They typically lose their power to stand up and fall onto the floor of the sanctuary, sometimes for a few seconds and sometimes for quite a long time.

  *. The Christian Century

  *. Books & Culture