Where Has The Power Gone?
Yesterday, the day after Christmas, on PBS they aired a program on Buddhism where they explained miracles in the context of that faith as just being “the unexpected” in a mundane rational world. Having a cup of coffee instead of tea could be classified as a miracle. There is no supernatural in Buddhism when everything derives from within oneself and the mind. There is no life after death when all emphasis is on the present, this minute moment of self awareness and fulfillment, the avoidance of suffering.
I have just finished teaching a series on “the Cross” where I defined it as the supernatural (vertical relationship with the divine) dissecting or intersecting the natural (horizontal relationship of our own life). I have personally chosen to call those times “God Moments”.
The program made me stop to think that most Christians, like their Buddhist counterparts, have chosen to live in the present moment, not expecting the divine to “actually interfere” with their lives, looking for an unexpected event to be their miracle rather than experiencing the divine nature of God in them to rise and manifest itself, producing the unexpected.
I missed the influential days of the 1970’s and Charismatic movement when I witnessed actual miracles. I miss actually seeing physical healings, demonic deliverances, manifestation of spiritual gifts, tongues, interpretations, prophetic utterances, singing in the spirit, out door Jesus rallies, nondenominational gathering of actual Body ministry with unique corporate worship, fellowship among the saints without any religious label or denomination placed on a person, a hunger for Jesus, a hunger for worship, a hunger to get into the Word of God, a hunger to fellowship with other believers, a time when one “expected” the “unexpected”, one “expected” the Holy Spirit to move producing the “unexpected”, alias a miracle.
Jesus warned those in his day about seeking only miracles while missing the Miracle Maker, the supernatural, in their midst. I am not talking about focusing on “miracles”, but focusing on Jesus. Jesus’ whole life was the “unexpected” visit of the Godhead, in the form of man, to earth through a virgin birth! Everything he did was “unexpected” for his time, thus miraculous. Even the “expected” cruel death on a cross was usurped by the “unexpected” resurrection, leaving all the officials of his time without a rational explanation.
I propose, that as Christians we need to “expect” the “unexpected”! We need to “anticipate” the moving of the Holy Spirit in our lives as “supernaturally natural”. That is why Christianity in its purest form has so much more to offer than Buddhism.