I had met Kirk for breakfast. I liked him. We met on a water taxi from Belize to an island, Caye Caulker. We were now having breakfast at Amor y Cafe. Kirk is younger than I but still feeling the weight of his sixth decade of life. He observed that aging is not enjoyable. I concurred wholeheartedly, for that was the reason I had come to this island: to swim and hopefully regain some of my health.
I quickly added: “But then there’s Isaiah 65,
Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere child
It is a verse I have been “claiming” in an approximate way, hoping that I have many good years ahead of me.
To this, Kirk quickly and confidently rejoined, “Ah, yes. The Millennium!”
I knew exactly what he meant: Christ would return someday, Satan would be imprisoned, and earth would be well for a thousand years. During that time, we will experience a wealth of miracles, all the healing imaginable.
If we had been keeping score, Kirk would get a point for allowing the statement about the hundred-year-old child to be true (even literally) and at the same time entirely futuristic. I’d get a point afterward for writing that the statement is hyperbolic. Whether someone lives to be a hundred this year or in the Millennium, there’s something rhetorical and exaggerative about calling that person “a child.” Similarly, if someone dies at, say, 95 years, calling that person “accursed” (as Isaiah 65 soon states) is equally hyperbolic. The obvious point of Isaiah 65 is that things will, at an unspecified time and under unspecified conditions, get incredibly better for people.
Enough of Isaiah 65 for now, beautiful as the vision is. Enough of Kirk, too—only because he had to leave the island the next day and I never questioned him further about his beliefs.
But the conversation we started at the cafe continued a debate within me. On one hand, I am one who believes miracles are for today. On the other hand, I looked at the advantages of those who believe miracles are for the Millennium.
I see miracles, especially healings, as part of our daily bread, the sort of thing Jesus illustrated while on earth, the thing the disciples illustrated after Jesus ascended, and the thing occasionally experienced, sometimes in crowds, sometimes alone, by people across the ages.
The other school, sometimes called dispensationalism, sees the one miracle of being born again as the miracle we can both count on and help manifest in our lifetime. Salvation, period. The physical miracles can wait until the Millennium.
Unlike Millennial thinkers, I cannot wait passively. If miracles, especially of healing, were needed and delivered to the people in Jesus’ Palestine, they are equally needed today. Yes, medicine does much, but medicine doesn’t come close to curing many, many ailments. Look at the disease stricken world and realize the need is greater than ever. The reason, I think, people join the Millennial school, is because they don’t understand why divine healings are so rare. When I am pressed for why miracles occur so rarely (few people I know have documentable divine healings), I think of the one thing for which Jesus criticized his disciples most frequently: disbelief.
If Peter had enough faith to get out of a boat and take a few steps on stormy water, began to sink, cried for help from Jesus, and was met by, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”—if that, then why in the world are we satisfied with our level of faith? Most of us are still sitting in the boat. Many of of us cry out for help. Few of us even imagine walking on water or doing anything that suggests that a great reality undergirds us.
I bring up disbelief because it was a problem among the disciples and is surely a problem among most modern “believers.” There is no condemnation in admitting one has disbelief, just as there’s no condemnation in admitting one has a past. We all need to start somewhere. The question isn’t, “Where did we start?” but “Where are we headed?”
Faith has little to do with with our will power and much more to do with what we are listening to. To become absorbed in the teachings of Jesus, including the prophetic voices of, say, Isaiah, is to be on the path to faith. Learning to see what is real for God (read Romans 8 for a sample) is learning to doubt our experiences and instead trust in the good news.
In conclusion, on one hand, I like the tidiness of Millennial thinking. The plan is to appreciate the miracle of being reconciled to God. Not only do we appreciate the one miracle but we also propagate it. We have churches that teach the gospel. We are all able to share in one capacity or another the gospel. Those who believe, start a new life with Jesus and our Father. Those that don’t may later. Someday we will die and experience much, much more. It’s beautiful.
It is beautiful! And I need to appreciate this vision. Of course the standard way of sharing the gospel needs constant tweaking. After all, it’s often preached to the choir. But beneath the cliches and rote understandings lie treasures that cannot be measured and shouldn’t be missed. Being born spiritually means never being alone again. It means always being in Christ, always being loved by God. It dwarfs about any other experience imaginable.
On the other hand (of my internal debate) I love the hope of the early gospel, the message that Jesus lives in us, that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I love the promises that whatever we ask in his name, we shall receive so that our joy may be full. And I love the occasional testimonies of those who were so ill that nothing could be done until the Spirit of God miraculously healed them. More than health, they gained a better knowledge of Jesus than otherwise possible.
So I do think I gained more appreciation of the purely spiritual salvation message that Kirk got me thinking about.
It in no way dislodged my appreciation of the physically miraculous.
I pay attention to all the stories of healing in the Bible, closely, as though I’m reading the news. Even when I’m not healed (and at the moment I’m imagining a divine touch), I’m coming closer and closer to learning God’s will. Just because things happen frequently in this world doesn’t mean God wills them. And just because things don’t happen, doesn’t mean God doesn’t will them. God’s will is revealed in Jesus, and it is expressed wherever there is faith and obedience. God’s will is wholesome, meaning God wants us whole, body, mind, and spirit. It will not be realized completely in this life—we all see through a darkly lighted mirror. But there’s not a bit of confusion of how Jesus treated sickness, never turning anyone away, always healing, always delivering.
Call me little faith, and I’m encouraged! If a little faith untangles God’s will from all the evil that happens, a little more faith will brings us in touch with the “God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not”—yes, the God who enabled geriatric Abraham and Sarah to give birth to a son (Romans 4:17).