As a priest and pastor, I have the awe-inspiring opportunity of being invited into people’s lives at their most vulnerable and tender moments. To those of us called as ministers for God’s people, it has been given us the responsibility to listen and stand in the gap with these precious lives, to help people connect to and see themselves as within and part of God’s love.

It isn’t always an easy calling, rather it is humbling and inspirational because we are frontline witnesses to miracles and resurrection appearances of Jesus. And if we are on our game, and have the courage, we identify and claim such tender moments as the work of God.

It isn’t an easy thing to do, to claim a miracle or resurrection appearance of Jesus. After all, in this time we are all schooled in the sciences and technology of the day. The stories of the bible, while true (however one defines truth), happened so long ago. Does God really still walk with us in such obvious ways as he did in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve? Does God still call to us as he did to Abraham and Sarah, or speak to us as he did with Mary?

The miracle stories in the Christian bible, and the resurrection appearances of Jesus, are really big stories, fantastical, maybe a whole lot like that movie Avatar. Our daily lives are not so big and fantastic. As a matter of fact they can be very routine and even dull.

But miracles and resurrection appearances of Jesus happen in our lives nonetheless. It is a matter of tuning our lives to see them. As a matter of fact, I think it is imperative that we see and know them, and thereby help conform the world to the place where mercy, justice and love prevail.

I’m sure there are more exact definitions, or more personal ones, but for me miracles are those times and places in our lives where God breaks in so that we might be opened up to new possibilities.

And I would describe Resurrection as moments of new and changed life. A surprising moment or movement of God in our world that changes everything; grace unexpected, unearned, and miraculous. Resurrection is Christ alive and afoot in our midst, re-creating us. Something that God alone does. We don’t resurrect things, God does. And when God breaks into our lives it is for a purpose.

Here are two miracle/resurrection stories that I know:

In my congregation there is a man who has lived in this area for many years. He raised his two sons in local schools, and retired from Boeing. His wife Margaret died last year and is buried nearby. Tom is mostly blind and would be a recluse due to his disability, except for the miracle of one of his sons, Bill. Bill takes care of Tom now, and brings him to church every Wednesday and Sunday for worship. A miracle of a child giving back the love he received.

You see, Bill was adopted by Tom and Margaret as a young child, and now he is giving back some of the life he has received. I call this a miracle of love.

There is a man named Grant who was born an identical twin. When Grant and Greg were 4 years old, Greg accidently drowned, and Grant’s soul was deeply wounded. Grant grew up, served in the military, and became a minister. While he was in seminary, he and his wife were expecting their first child. The ultrasound revealed that they were having twin daughters. Grant was experiencing resurrection and redemption and healing, all rolled into one amazing event.

These are fairly typical life stories, I’m sure you can tell similar ones, and that is my point. God gave us Jesus and his resurrection so that we might know that God’s love for us is eternal and for all people. There is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God.

The opportunity is for us is to have the eyes of our heart enlightened, so we may know what is the hope to which God has called us, as Paul said in his letter to the Ephesians. And with the eyes of our heart open, we can then see better the way of love and mercy and justice that the world needs us to see and act on.