It’s Holy Week. And I’m gonna be straight up with you.

No one has said this to me out loud, but I’m going to say it and I’ll trust that if I’m wrong, you’ll tell me.

Celebrating Jesus can feel hard.

So may of us are doing the thing. We’re celebrating the holidays as well as we can, and we’re praising Jesus because He was raised from the dead because we know He’s so worthy of it.

But deep down, too many of us feel like it’s all one big question mark.

How am I supposed to celebrate the miracle of Jesus when I feel like He isn’t showing up in my life? He tells me that He can raise the dead, but nothing feels alive in my life. God, I believe that you can do anything, but so far, it kind of feels like you are just busy with someone else’s miracle. 

I love that Easter isn’t just a nice metaphor. It is the literal reason we have every good thing. True life, forgiveness, mercy… it isn’t a holiday or an example to us. It’s the whole deal. As much as Easter is about the Resurrection and our freedom (which is enough in itself), I am convinced it teaches us something that we are missing.

The miracle of Jesus teaches us about process. 

I believe 100% that when Jesus is involved, anything is possible. Anything can happen in a nanosecond. But even with all of the faith in the world, our breakthroughs often don’t happen in a moment, do they?

They can often look like weeks, months, years. Time spent putting work in, learning about surrender. Seasons of pain and suffering that don’t feel like seasons; they feel permanent.

From the outside, it seems that our souls were saved in a moment. And we’re not wrong there. The moment where Jesus took His last breath, the earth was dark and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. [Luke 23:45] It was an earth-shaking, eternity altering moment. Everything did change in an instant.

But.

Let’s be reminded of the person of Jesus – fully man, fully God. He didn’t show up as a grown man, like Superman, rushing in to save the day in a few hours. He came to the world as an infant, completely vulnerable and helpless. He learned to walk. He learned to talk. He had a mom and dad. He had friends that betrayed Him.

The entire first half of the Bible is waiting. Waiting for the promise, waiting for the miracle. And then even when the miracle comes, there are 30 or so years until the moment. 

And let’s be honest: the moment looked like failure. Even though Jesus promised everyone that He loved that this wasn’t the end – it looked like the end.

Does it feel like it’s been forever? Like you’ve believed in God and you’ve trusted His word, but… God, aren’t you the God of miracles? Yeah, He still is. And we get to celebrate Easter to be reminded that miracles are not always instant, and they aren’t always pretty.

For Jesus, healing and life took three days. Three days may not sound long when you’ve been experiencing your pain for years. But I think death is as probably about as bad as it gets, don’t you? In this light, three days is an eternity.

God loves us too much to simply sweep His hand and rescue us every time we think we need it. In fact, He loved us so much that He chose not to save the world in that way. He sent His Son to live, breathe, experience waiting and suffering. He experienced process and He asked God to change His mind. Imagine the patience our God must have to not just scoop us up every time we ask Him to. His heart breaks watching us wonder if He’s truly for us. His patience and His process are signs of His goodness, not His negligence.

If the Savior of the world had to go through process in order to reach the miracle, why should we be any different? 

His entire life was a process. Each moment divinely appointed, leading up to one perfect saving act of grace.

We’ve got to remember that our miracle was His sacrifice. It took absolutely everything from Him; it took His life. And I just wonder sometimes if we aren’t willing to sacrifice to experience a miracle from God. I’m not talking about working to see God move. I’m talking about laying down our own plans. I’m talking about surrendering our comfort.

Jesus came to the earth to save your life.

He came to give you life here on earth, and true life in eternity.

He came so that you would know that you are never alone. He walked through it all so that we could be intimately in touch with God, knowing that He feels our pain.

But He also came so that we wouldn’t believe the lies of immediacy. He lived His entire life waiting for a promise to be fulfilled – waiting on and trusting on God. He did this so we would know that it’s possible.

And it is. The miracle of God in your life isn’t summed up in one breakthrough. He’s in the waiting. He’s in the suffering and the questions. He is patient in your process.

 

“For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize and understand our weaknesses and temptations, but One who has been tempted [knowing exactly how it feels to be human] in every respect as we are, yet without [commiting any] sin. Therefore let us [with privilege] approach the throne of grace with confidence and without fear, so that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find His amazing grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16 AMP