The Miracle of Miracles?

Hockey is in the headlines again after the 2010 American Olympic team overcame the odds to beat a highly favored Canadian club in their own backyard in the first round of the Vancouver Winter Games. The talented Team Canada is reeling from the loss as is an entire nation where the sport reaches, and often exceeds, the status of religion. The U.S. team now holds in their hands their own destiny.

Speaking of destiny, it was 30 years ago today that a small young group of unknown mostly college hockey players did the unthinkable, if not the impossible. At the Lake Placid Olympics the amateur American team faced and eventually defeated the world’s most formidable pro hockey machine from the then Soviet Union. The victory was quickly dubbed “Miracle On Ice”, since the opposition had won the previous four Olympic titles and 14 of the previous 17 world championships.

But the unlikely defeat of Russia’s longtime dominant squad greatly exceeded the realm of sport. It was global. It became a miniature representation of two nations waging what was then called “The Cold War”. The Soviets were devastated at the upstart kids whose performance shed doubt around the world on what the Communist nation claimed to be a superior way of life. History would also prove them wrong not long after the U.S Hockey team proved them vulnerable.

The most memorable moment from the 1980 gold medal run was considered the single greatest moment in all of sports. Its stunning memory would be memorialized by the words from then commentator Al Michels who, with just seconds left, shouted to the world, “Do you believe in miracles?

”Wikipedia encyclopedia defines a miracle as “an unexpected event attributed to divine intervention. Sometimes an event is also attributed (in part) to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that God may work with the laws of nature to perform what people perceive as miracles. Theologians say that, with divine providence, God regularly works through created nature yet is free to work without, above, or against it as well."

For a miracle to truly be just that does require divine intervention even when God does make use of flawed people to achieve His ends. The Bible is littered with God-designed miracles in the Old and New Testament alike. Most would think of the miracles of Jesus when he turned water to wine, fed thousands with fragments, healed the sick, and even raised the dead on occasion.

But the greatest miracle of God, hands down, is often over looked even by those who experience it firsthand. The Bible describes miracle number one as being “born-again". To end any doubt concerning its importance, Jesus spoke of it clearly and powerfully in John’s Gospel, chapter three. In verses 5-7 He stated to an inquisitive Nicodemus, “I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.” The Savior left no room for other options – period!

In the spiritual realm, the famous line, “Do you believe in miracles?” is more than just a clever collection of memorable words describing a monstrous historical event. The reason is profound. Ultimately it is belief that matters in life, death, and eternity, but not the basic belief that there is a supernatural being somehow and somewhere as James 2:19 assures, “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe — and tremble.”

The belief that leads to redemption is all about a believing faith and sincere trust in a Savior who alone can forgive sin and cleanse the human heart - forever. It is the belief that brings about the condition Jesus spoke of to Nicodemus. And although numerous places substantiate this great theological truth, it is nowhere better seen than in 1 John 5:11-13.

“And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”

When the members of the 1980 U.S. gold metal hockey team someday individually stand before their Creator, He will in no way be interested in their famed "Miracle On Ice". In that most sobering of all moments, He will instead be asking only this. Do you believe in the 'miracle of all miracles' - the forgiveness of your sins through personal faith in My Son's sacrifice on Calvary's cross?

Bill Breckenridge