Do You Believe in Miracles?

I do.

At least that's the story I'm sticking with come Sunday.  I'm the substitute preacher this week, during a series on the Apostle's Creed (short, Protestant-y version of the Nicene Creed, for any readers who may be Catholic - you know who you are).  I get one whole verse on which to riff: John 1:14, which is plenty, thanks.  I also get to tackle that line in the creed that says Jesus is God's "one & only Son" (or only-begotten, for you traditionalists).

In my preparation for this thing during Christmas week, which is in itself fortuitous timing, I have found that belief in this one part of the creed requires belief in the miraculous, pretty much like the whole of Christianity does.  And by miraculous, I don't mean the Hallmark Channel version of miracles, as in the collision of Providence and chance, resulting in changed lives, changed hearts, etc.

I mean miracles that DEFY THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS, go against logic, science, mathematics, startle us with how NOT NORMAL they are, forcing us to confront the Infinite stepping into the finite, the supernatural overriding the natural, God intervening in the human affairs.  How one can embrace full-on Materialism and also believe in Christianity as portrayed in the Bible (the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, etc.), is beyond me.  

How a follower of Jesus can believe in the pre-existence of Christ PRIOR TO the Incarnation is beyond me, too, but that's another discussion altogether.  I'll give that one only a passing slap on Sunday, as my focus is really elsewhere:  the existence of miracles, honest-to-God (and I mean that literally) fall-on-your-face (yep, that, too...) miracles that happen whenever God and humanity interact.

Wish me luck.  I'll need a miracle to get through this one.  ;)