Miracle of the Christ

1 Kings 17:1
Now Elijah the Tishbite who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” (2)  The Word of the Lord came to him, saying, (3)“Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. (4) “It shall be that you will drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there.” (5) So he went and did according to the Word of the Lord, for he went and lived by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. (6) The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he would drink from the brook.

In the beginning was the Word (the Christ), and the Word (Christ) was with God, and the Word (the Christ) was God.

Obviously John is talking about something else other than the writings in the Bible. He is speaking of a Word that has priority over the Bible. It is a divine Word, the Christ presence, the light that God is bringing to humanity that we might fulfill our original purpose, to walk as children of light, to be light and salt in the earth.

In the Bible we have written words, written revelations that relied on human authors to get it right, to make sure that not too much human personality, weakness and bias got through. They did a pretty good job of it, but they were human, what they said is time-bound, limited by chronos (chronological space-time), limited by their own personal experiences.

What Moses often said and wrote reflected his own personal frustration with Israel. His expression tends toward negative “shall nots,” harsh laws and teachings with numerous curses and punishments, stonings, exclusions from the community for all who fail to follow them. All of the revelations that created the Bible contain meanings, contexts, circumstances that no longer exist in the same form and are lost to us.

This is why the Word, the Christ, must become flesh, must set up tent in us. Knowing the Bible is a first and necessary step, but knowing how it reads gives us a foundation on which to understand the Word (the Christ presence) as it speaks to us through the Spirit. We, like Jesus become tents of the Christ-to seek and share a new and living Word, interpreted, revealed and renewing for our time and situation.

For that reason Bible study is necessary to discern to clarify, to separate progressive revelation from final revelation, to separate spiritual musings from revealed absolute truths. Without the Christ: words are just words

But the Word that John speaks of in this first chapter is not a written Word, but a spiritual reality—a transforming life force. It is the Word that God gave Peter when he told him, "Rise, slay and eat," and Peter had the temerity to challenge God, saying, “By no means, Lord, for I have never touched anything unholy and unclean.” After this vision returned three times and God had said the same thing three times through the angel, Peter was troubled. He was perplexed of mind as to whether this vision was really from God or not. How could a Word from God contradict what was clearly in the Book of Leviticus?

How could God’s word to him concerning going to and preaching to and receiving this Gentile as he would receive a Jew, so clearly contradict the laws and precepts as he had been taught them in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Common Ravens are omnivorous and highly opportunistic: their diet may vary widely with location, season and serendipity. In some places they are mainly scavengers. Not equipped to tear through large bodied birds as well as birds such as hook-billed vultures, they must wait for the prey to be torn open by another predator or flayed by other means before they can eat themselves. Plant food includes cereal grains, berries and fruit. They prey on small invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals and birds. Ravens are regular predators at bird nests, brazenly picking off eggs, nestings and sometimes adult birds when they spot an opportunity. They have been major foil in the State of California’s attempts to preserve the condor.

Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God’s creative, life-giving power in the world. All who receive him in this life, who fully accept him into their lives, get the opportunity to participate in this life-giving creative process. John presents the miracles of Jesus in a specific order to demonstrate the progression of God’s power and authority over every aspect of human life and finally with the raising of Lazarus, life itself.

The first miracle in the Gospel of John is revealed in the first chapter, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father full of grace and truth. John uses the imagery of the tabernacle, the tent of meeting where Israel would gather to offer praise and hear from and experience God as a community.

This tent was God’s MASH unit, a Mobile Army Spiritual House. Before the temple, before the shrine, before the synagogue, before the church, before the cathedral, there was the tent. The Word, the divine creative, energizing wisdom, power and might of God pitched its tent among us in the form, Jesus of Nazareth, revealed ultimately as the Christ of God.

This same Christ, this creative power of God, commanded the ravens, against their own natural predatory instinct, to gather food for Elijah rather than to keep it for themselves. God can intervene in the normal order, the normal outcomes, the logical sequence, the expected conclusions—and do something new, something different. God.

Once Elijah had pronounced the prophecy, no dew, no rain, nothing until God tells me different, he still needed to eat and drink. God brought the socio-economic condition, draught, famine, upon the entire nation. Elijah was not exempt from the trouble. But God made a way for him to survive in the midst of trouble. God re-created the consciousness of the ravens. He transformed their behavior and nature from predatory: greedy, eager to steal, to prey upon, to nurturing, generous, magnanimous in sharing.
God desires to transform the behavior of "the ravens" in our lives and experiences. God will bring them to subjection to His plan for us, if we are subject to God's plan and will for our lives. Ravens can be many things in our lives, they prey on us, threaten us, seek to rob us of the goodness of life.

This is the power of the Word that God can release in our lives. It is a matter of faith, of acceptance, of allowing the Spirit to direct us and work through us.

After God tells us something new and different, the definition of strange, he does not give us long to act. While Peter still wondered whether or not this vision, this Word, this new understanding could be from God, the Spirit said to him, “Three men are coming to take you to Cornelius the Gentile.” Then there was a knock at the door. He was informed, “O yeah, that vision you had and have been questioning, well there are some guys at the gate who said their master just had the same vision.

After Peter had gone to his house, had preached, had witnessed the Holy Spirit come on Cornelius, his relatives and close friends. The circumcised believers, the first followers of Jesus, the Jews, when they saw what God had done were amazed, “for they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God.” He asked, "Can anyone here give reason why they should not be baptized (accepted into the church as persons of faith)? Can we?

Praise god for the first miracle of Jesus—The miracle of the Christ in human form.—Christ in you, the hope of glory. Amen.