Once upon a depressingly long time ago, I had this encounter with my mother. It was shortly before Christmas, and, me being a gotta-have-it-now kind of boy, I was pitching a fit because I didn’t want to wait until Christmas Day to open my presents, which were at that moment taunting me from underneath the tree. My mother did her best to talk me down from this poorly thought out position by reminding me that most of the fun, most of the miracle of Christmas came from the anticipation leading up to the big day. I wasn’t having any of it. I wanted my miracle now, and I didn’t want to hear about any possible disappointment later. Those of you condemned to live forever in the moment will understand exactly what I was feeling. Those of you blessed with patience and self-control? Not so much.
I persisted in my complaining about the unfairness of it all until my mother had finally had enough. “Fine, go open your presents! But I don’t want to hear a word out of you on Christmas morning when the rest of us are enjoying the fact that we waited for our Christmas surprises.” And so thats what I did. I sat there on the floor beside that tree and, in a scene that grows more and more tragic the further removed I become from it, I opened each one of my presents. Alone. Without any fanfare. Without anyone to say, Let me see that! Or to ask, What do you have there, David? There was no one with whom to share my excitement. To be perfectly honest, there wasn’t that much excitement to share.
I think I realized after the first or second unwrapping that this wasn’t turning out the way I thought it would, but I was too invested in my demands and expectations, and pride wouldn’t let me alter course. Sure enough, Christmas morning, when it came, was a dreary and depressing time for me. Not yet mature enough to find joy in other people’s happiness, I simply sat there wishing I had something to open, some surprise to experience. I wanted the Christmas miracle I had spurned a few days before, when I had settled for the temporary miracle of a premature (and disappointing) excitement.
That’s not the only time I’ve asked or settled for temporary miracles. I imagine you know what I’m talking about. Perhaps you’ve thought you’d be content with temporary miracles, as well, only to find they weren’t as satisfying or fulfilling as you thought they would be. If so, we’re not alone. Even the characters, the heroes, in the Bible sought temporary miracles, convinced they would provide permanent happiness. In the time of Jesus, the Jews wanted nothing more than to be delivered from under the yoke of Rome. In fact, their entire messianic theology expected it. Many, the Sadducees in particular, had no higher expectation than earthly deliverance from earthly constraints. When it became clear that Jesus wasn’t here to satisfy these temporary desires, that he had an entirely different agenda, most people turned on him. At the end of his ministry, as he hung on that cross, how many of his followers were still around? One? Two? Not much to show for three and a half years of effort, was it.
As a temporary miracle, his service on earth was pretty inconsequential, wasn’t it? In fact, every single visible, obvious, miracle Jesus ever performed was temporary in nature. The best wine ever was drunk up. Every crippled person he made walk, eventually lay down again and stopped walking—at death. Every dead person he raised to life died again. Temporary miracles. Momentary stays, as Frost would say, against the confusion brought about by sin. Ahh, but the inside miracles—the healing of Peter’s heart, the touching of Nicodemus’s spirit, the changing of Matthew’s direction, the non-condemnation of the adulterous woman, the seeking out of the Samaritan woman at the well—these and so many others, these were the permanent miracles. The kinds of miracles that survive the grave and rise above the ups and downs of our temporary lives. These are the kinds of miracles we need.
Jesus made it clear that his kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). Our concerns and priorities are not necessarily his concerns and priorities. We want a political solution to an external problem—like racism or injustice or corruption—and he offers a soul solution to our internal problem—sin. Every fix we put in place on the outside is by definition temporary and frail. But the changed heart? That is forever! “I have come that they might have life,” Jesus said (John 10:10), which must have seemed to those who heard him a strange thing to say. Every one around him was alive already. Ahh, but only with a temporary sort of life, the kind of life that settles for temporary miracles. Jesus offered, and offers, a better life, a fuller, more abundant life, a permanent life.
Oh, there are blessings and miracles along the way. Do not neglect to enjoy them as they come. But also do not mistake these temporary things for the real thing. Temporary miracles cannot satisfy like the permanent miracle of the love of the Eternal King can. And that miracle is yours for the asking. Go ahead. Do it now. And . . . Merry Christmas (a few months early).
