Better than Good, Part II

Better Than Good, Part II

Psalm 136: 1 – 3, 23 – 26

Romans 8: 31 – 39

February 8, 2026

One of my favorite sites in Israel is the Greek Orthodox Church St. Photini which is located in Nablus. St. Photini is led by Father Justinus who has been its priest for over 60 years. Father Justinus is an amazing man. The church is famous for its ministries to the poor and hungry. Father Justinus designed and oversaw the construction of the church. He is also an amazing painter of Icons, and the church is filled with his work.

St. Photini is named after a particular saint, a woman who is often called the mother of evangelism. We know her best as the Samaritan Women at the Well. That well has been documented since the second century before Jesus. It is over 130 feet deep and to this day, pilgrims can draw cool, fresh water from the well to drink.

It is known as Jacob’s well and is the location of the meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman. Their conversation is not the point of our sermon today, but the power of Jesus is. After she was done, after Photini and Jesus had talked, she raced back to town and told all that would listen, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

Come and see a man who told me everything that I ever did. This was no one-time, flash in the pan miracle of Jesus. Just shortly before, Jesus calls the disciple Nathanael and the disciple agrees to follow Jesus on the basis of Jesus seeing and knowing Nathanael, even before they met.

These miraculous acts – known collectively as demonstrations of the omniscience of God and Jesus – the ability of God and Jesus to know all – this ability is demonstrated; not just with the Woman at the Well, not just with Nathanael, but through the Old and New Testament.

But that is not their only miraculous ability. God parts the Red Sea through Moses, making it possible for Israel to escape slavery and oppression in Egypt. God provides Manna and Quail – miraculously feeding 600,000 Israelite men and their families. Jesus calms the waters and quiets the storm. That same Jesus feeds thousands with a poor child’s lunch.

Time and time again, God and Jesus demonstrate their mastery over all that is. As the Ones who created the world; as the Ones who blew life into humanity; their creative power and divine sovereignty over the physical earth is demonstrated time and time again. We talk about this miraculous power reflecting the omnipotence of God.

David sings beautifully in Psalm 139, from The Message translation:

Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight?

If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there!

If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon,

You'd find me in a minute - you're already there waiting!

Of course, the answer is no. There is no place that we can go, there is no place where we can hide, because God is present everywhere – God is omnipresent.

We have been thinking together about Mark Batterson’s book, “A Million Little Miracles.” These miracles have reflected the knowledge, the power, the presence of God. So many of them we have taken for granted – the stars in the heavens, the unbelievably complex and yet efficient operations of our bodies, the intricacies and interconnectedness of the microscopic world. All of these have testified to the omniscience, the omnipotence, the omnipresence of God.

One could infer from these million little miracles some things about the nature of this miraculous God. Power, knowledge, presence – and these inferences would all true. But if this was all we knew – this power – than the notion of being in relationship with this all-powerful God could be a frightening one.

The ancient gods of Greece and Rome were said to have such powers; but these gods were petty, vindictive, and ultimately only to be feared. The pagan gods of the ancient world were bloodthirsty and cruel, demanding child sacrifice and other bloody means of appeasement to stay on their good side.

Even the gods of our own making in this day only reward the self-serving and self-centered and yet we ascribe to them similar powers of the miraculous.

No, we need to go beyond the stories of the miraculous to truly understand this God with whom we are in relationship. When we do that, like Nicodemus, we learn that God so loved the world – LOVED the world! – that he gave us Jesus; not so that we would be punished and condemned, but so that we might be saved through him! When we go to Scripture, like we find in John’s first letter, we learn that the love that God has for us transforms us, making us children of God.

I believe it is in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome that we find a convincing and powerful expression. Remember, the church at Rome was experiencing horrific persecution under the Roman Emperor Nero. Nero, a manipulative, self-serving and oppressive Roman emperor, used the Christians as a convenient scapegoat for the fire that ravaged roughly two thirds of the city of Rome. Of the fourteen municipal districts of the city, 3 were completely burned to the ground and 7 more were significantly damaged.

Rumors surrounding the cause of the fire were plentiful and Nero needed some group upon which he could pin the blame. Christians were an easy target. As a result, Christians were torn apart by lions and dogs in one of the two great coliseums of Rome. Christians were crucified along the roadways of Rome to serve as a warning to others to be more careful. Christians were covered in pitch and burned as torchlights for the city streets – that is where we get the name “Roman Candles.”

And yet, to these people, Paul writes that nothing can separate us from the love of God. In a world where Christians are being killed all day long, where they are little more than sheep to be slaughtered, Paul writes that there is nothing – absolutely nothing – that can separate us from the love of God. Not fire, not persecution, not even our own self-serving and self-destructive decision making can separate us from the love of God.

But friends, it is around this communion table that we find the highest, clearest expression of the love of God. Around this table we remember that Jesus, second person of the Trinity, co-creator of the universe, and demonstrator of all God’s power was willing to put that all aside. Was willing to put aside all of those miraculous abilities and take on the worst that humanity could do. Jesus was willing to put it all aside, suffer and be crucified, for what reason – out of what motivation?

So that we might be restored to that relationship with God for which we were created in the first place and – AND – it was done, not as an expression of power, but as an expression of love. Love for you and me.

God is love – that is the character of God. That is the God – a loving God – with whom we are in relationship and that we offer to others.

That love – is the greatest of all these miracles. Know – KNOW – that you are loved that much. Amen.