Couldn't Help Noticing

The ‘grilled cheeses’ lead balloon

The Briefing used to run a section called ‘Lead Balloons—Ideas slightly too outrageous to be taken seriously’; and, truth to tell, I've been getting nostalgic. So rather than sit on my hands and dream about the past, I thought I'd pioneer a revival in the genre.

With the approach of Easter, I keep seeing posters of Jesus around the suburb I live in, advertising some walkabout on Good Friday. It's extremely annoying. I always feel that images of Christ teeter on the verge of—if not idolatry—at the very least, an unhelpful misrepresentation of someone whose real appearance we have no idea. Was Jesus really blond? The pictures I saw in Sunday school stories when I was little left me in no doubt that the answer was ‘yes’. But the Bible is consistently silent on the question, with the sole exception of Isaiah 53:2-3.

It got me thinking, though, because it is often reported that people see images of Jesus all over the place—in a photo of the snow, in their reheated pizza, in the shadows on a wall. One recent discovery reported the image of Mary, the mother of Jesus, appearing in a toasted grilled cheese sandwich that sold for quite a bit of money on eBay.

I wonder if there might be a case for reversing the trend of superstitious sightings of Christ which, it has to be said, are frequently associated with certain forms of less thought-out Roman Catholicism.

Do you think there might be value in a bit of Protestant religious artwork which, at first glance, appears to be an image of our Lord, but on closer inspection coalesces into a near-perfect representation of a Big Mac?

I was born traditional

My kids were having a shouting match the other day. “They need to learn to fight”, I thought to myself. “Perhaps it's best to stay here on the lounge and leave them to it.”

When the noise started to interfere with my comfort, I decided it was time try a spot of refereeing. I separated the combatants, and tried to initiate a rational discussion. Of course, every time we got even close to talking calmly and rationally about what the real problem was and what we might do about it, someone would start shouting again, and then everyone would be shouting, and all possibility of reasonable discussion would evaporate (like my patience). Eventually I just left them to duke it out.

This seems to be how a great many things function in our society. Politics, arguably. The media, without a doubt. Why do we seem so incapable of sustaining any kind of reasonable discussion before the shouting takes over?

Take what happened to poor Albert Mohler in the last couple of weeks. Dr Mohler, who is President of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, and an articulate voice for Reformed Evangelicalism in the US, offered some musings on his blog about what the consequences would be if a genetic test became available that was able to predict for homosexuality. Despite the caveats and qualifications with which Dr Mohler hedged his brief online musings, the media frenzy started almost immediately. “Seminary president says babies born gay” screamed the headlines. Before he knew it, Dr Mohler was inundated with hate mail both from conservative Christians (accusing him of selling out to the devil by saying that homosexual was biological) and gay activists (pouring vitriol upon him for proposing that ‘gay babies be cured’). Neither group it seemed had taken the time to read the original blog article, because Dr Mohler had said neither thing.

No-one seemed to care. It's easier, after all, just to shout.

Ironically, quite soon after Al Mohler's brief entry into the media shouting match, another far more significant story slipped quietly under the media radar. Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project, spoke about what genetic research has actually discovered about the ‘heritability’ of traits such as homosexuality. According to Professor Collins, there is a genetic, heritable element to many human behaviours. Studies have suggested for example, that cognitive ability is about 50% traceable to genetic inheritance—likewise extroversion (54%), agreeableness (42%) and traditionalism (54%). Professor Collins had this to say about homosexuality:

An area of particularly strong public interest is the genetic basis of homosexuality. Evidence from twin studies does in fact support the conclusion that heritable factors play a role in male homosexuality. However, the likelihood that the identical twin of a homosexual male will also be gay is about 20% (compared with 2-4 percent of males in the general population), indicating that sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations. (Source.)

In other words, genetically inherited predispositions play some role in many behaviours—including homosexuality—but they are in no sense determinative. Environmental factors, and the choices of the individual over time, also play a massive part. And in the case of homosexuality, the level of likely genetic influence is relatively small—compared to, say, traditionalism.

What's that? I can hear the shouting beginning in the distance: “Christian author says babies born traditional ...”

Not all at sea

I love phoning friends and discovering what they are reading in the Bible. It's like stubbing your toe on a previously unseen gemstone in your backyard, and even if the rest of your day is wasted nursing a sore foot, you feel like you've come out ahead.

The other day I phoned Mike Wirth to talk about our daughter's baptism, and we ended up in the deep waters of Acts 27 and 28. Here Luke spends an extraordinary 60 verses describing Paul's epic journey to Rome which involved shipwreck, fearful foreign sailors, an attack by a viper in Malta, and other great adventures. But why? Why spend so much time recounting a trip which could have been covered in a sentence—something like “Paul was taken to Rome, and despite shipwreck and attacks from a vindow viper, arrived in good health to preach the gospel”?

Mike, having spent time thinking about the Old Testament and some other ancient near-eastern documents, mentioned how the sea was traditionally a place of chaos and fear (the place, for example, where monsters dwell— see Psalm 74:13 and Isaiah 27:1). For God to exercise supreme control over such a situation when the pagan sailors, trusting in their own gods, had sunk into the depths of helpless despair makes their rescue all the more glorious. The more Luke tells us of the sheer terror of the storm (hence the meticulous detail), the more God's greatness in salvation is revealed.

Related to this, Mike also pointed out something that even the normally excellent English Standard Version of the Bible doesn't quite succeed in conveying: how frequently the words ‘saved’, ‘salvation’ and other related words occur in Luke's account in the original Greek in reference to rescue from the storm and shipwreck. Not only had the sailors given up all hope of being “saved” from this storm—not only had Paul told them how to be “saved” (Acts 27:20; Acts 27:31—the ESV gets these right, along with “safely” in 27:44 and 28:1)—but the sailors are also told to eat, “for this is for your safety” (American Standard Version of Acts 27:34, which uses the same Greek ‘salvation’ word), and in 28:4, Paul has been “saved” from the sea. The point is that Paul's entire seaborne adventure speaks of God's power to save his chosen messenger of the gospel to the Gentiles in the face of the chaos of creation.

I wondered too about another well-known storm at sea involving one of God's Old Testament messengers. This man—Jonah—was also saved by God from a storm at sea for the express purpose of bringing the message of judgement and salvation to people outside Israel. God, unchanging in his grace, wants all people everywhere to hear the news of salvation.

This last comparison isn't made by Luke in Acts 27-28 so it may be pushing it. I'm not even going to mention Noah's flood or the Egyptians being drowned in the deluge of the waters of the Red Sea; I don't want to blame Mike for my flights of join-the-dots fancy. But one thing is sure: the Old and New Testament God will not let even the wildness of a fallen creation stand in the way of the good news of the kingdom of God. Paul makes it to Rome and announces there that “this salvation [yes—again the same Greek word!] of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen” (Acts 28:28). Let's be sure we do.

Crazy coffins

Fancy being buried in a replica of your favourite car? “Not a problem”, says David Crampton, director of Vic Fearn Co. Ltd, a Nottinghamshire UK-based company which offers to help you make the ultimate statement at your own funeral. (Source.)

The company, which has been making traditional coffins for generations, has turned its hand to building custom coffins for anyone with £5,000 ($12,500 AUD) to spare. To date, the company has created wooden overcoats in the shape of ballet shoes, skateboards, electric guitars, narrowboats, cricket bags, a hot dog (complete with onions and mustard on top) and even a husky sled, ordered by an arctic explorer. People often keep the coffin in a prominent place in their house as both a work of art and a talking point about their final resting place.

It got me thinking how Christians could use this idea to preach a posthumous sermon to the crowd gathered at the funeral to suggest that this is not their final resting place. So here are a few ideas:

• A bed: I have fallen asleep in Christ but I will one day wake up at my master's call (1 Thess 4:13);
• A giant bee or wasp—with stinger removed!: (1 Cor 15:55). (This would be particularly suitable for a Christian entomologist);
• A model of Noah's ark: I will come safely through the judgement (1 Pet 3:20);
• A giant seed: I will be transformed into an imperishable body (1 Cor 15:42);
• (For the really daring:) a large sarcophagus with the outer covering looking like the Lord Jesus: I am a man in Christ—I have been buried with him, but will also rise with him (1 Cor 6:4).

Should we fast?

Currently it's Lent (the lead-up to Easter in the religious calendar), and within some Christian circles, fasting is popular. There is nothing wrong with fasting, of course, and when you read both Old and New Testament, you will find instances where people fasted for very good reasons.

However, people will sometimes claim that Christians should fast because Jesus fasted. It is a dodgey line of reasoning because Jesus did many things that we are under no compulsion to imitate: he lived in Palestine; he learnt carpentry; he worked for his father Joseph; he thought that it was necessary to visit Jerusalem not once, but many times; he cursed fig trees that were not fruity enough; he saw the city of Jerusalem and wept; and he died by being nailed to a cross.

Nevertheless this still begs the question “Why did Jesus fast?” Let's be clear that he didn't do it much. If he had, it's unlikely he would have attracted the label of being “a glutton and a drunkard” (Luke 7:34). But in Mark's gospel, the reason given is that he had to: he was driven out into the wilderness (Mark 1:12-13; ‘driven’ is the same Greek word used later in the chapter where Jesus drives out a demon) and tempted by Satan, going without food and water for 40 days.

I suppose that next time we feel compelled by God to fast, we ought to do so. But given Jesus' unique ministry, it is also worth asking whether God in his word gives us any indication as to why he compelled Jesus to fast just before he began his public ministry in Israel.

In the Old Testament, who else was in the wilderness, led there by God to be tempted to unbelief for a period defined by “forty”? The answer is Israel (although we could have mentioned Noah's family in the flood in Genesis 7 and Elijah's visit to Mount Horeb in 1 Kings 19). Israel grumbled about food and water for a good 40 years, incurring the anger of God. God often reminds them of their 40-year grumbling in the rest of the Old Testament. But now, at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, before he enters the promised land, Jesus the true Israelite succeeds where they failed.

Not only this, but there are 40s within 40s. Someone else during the Exodus from Egypt spends 40 days without food and water. In Deuteronomy 9, Moses tells how he went without food and drink for 40 days—not once but twice: first when he receives God's law and second when he intercedes for Israel, praying about their sin. But Jesus is the true Israel: Jesus is the true intercessor who perfectly obeys the will of God and prays forgiveness for all the people of Israel.

When we understand the uniqueness of Jesus' work and the symbolism behind his fasting, would we be tempted to use his example as a reason never to fast again?