John and Kathy Deisher

One Call, One Harvest, 50 Teams

hope

Miracles Happen

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The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.”

— G.K. Chesterton
Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash

The great thing about miracles is that they happen.

That is also the most frustrating thing about them, because they happen outside of our control.

We can pray a certain prayer and a miracle happens. We say the same prayer and nothing happens. We face a certain situation and a miracle happens. We face a similar situation and nothing happens.

Jesus goes to the pool of Bethesda. Lots of sick people. He only heals one. A miracle! At least for one man.

But it was not a miracle for the others. One man walked out, healed. The others stayed, still needing healing. But now they know that there is hope. Now they know miracles happen.

That’s the thing about miracles.

They give us hope. And sometimes, that is enough.

Resurrection Hope

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In his Commentary on Romans, Karl Barth quotes Friedrich Nietzsche:

“Only where graves are is there resurrection.”

There has to be a death before there is a resurrection. That may not be something we want to think about—letting something die. It could be our plan, our dream, our relationship. It’s not working but we want to keep it on life-support, avoiding the grief of its death. But, what if we embraced that grief and waited to see if God desires to resurrect the dead to a redeemed life.

Lamentations is about death and grief. It is the death of a nation and the grief of its people. But right in the middle of the laments, Jeremiah writes:

But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:21-24 ESV)

It is alright to grieve for a season. There is a need for lamenting. But in the middle of the grief, there is a morning coming where the ceaseless love of God is faithfully unfolded through his unending mercy.

So I can stand at the grave with resurrection hope.

A Colony of Hope

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“It had taken me a long time, with considerable help from wise Christians, both dead and alive, to come to this understanding of church: a colony of heaven in the country of death, a strategy of the Holy Spirit for giving witness to the already-inaugurated kingdom of God.” Eugene Peterson, The Pastor, A Memoir

I am often asked, “What is Chi Alpha?”

The definitions get muddled sometimes.

“We are a Christian community on campus.”

“We reach students for Christ.”

“We reach students, train them, and send them out for the glory of God.”

We know what we do, but what are we?

What if we saw ourselves as a “colony of heaven in the country of death”? What if our task were to be the way the Holy Spirit announces that the Kingdom of God is here, smack dab in the middle of my campus?

My community?

My world?

How would we then look? How would we act? 

We would be people of hope.

And in a country of death, hope is a bright light that people desperately need.