Look at This!

Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, displacing at least 600,000 people and killing upwards of 3200 people.  The death toll continues to rise as rescue and recovery efforts continue.  Supplies of food and water are only now beginning to reach many of the victims.   The people need our prayers and support.

In the midst of the death and destruction there are, of course, acts of heroism and nobility, and there is one thing which stands out as truly amazing.  I am a rather concrete, historically based, and non-superstitious Christian.  Images of Jesus on food, or in the shape assumed by a Cheeto, or in a stain on a door, I find to be ridiculous.  I am skeptical of religious relics, signs, and supposed miracles.  I do not deny their existence, I merely realize that we cannot base our faith on them. 

Look at this. 

Ash Wednesday On the Street

Today is Ash Wednesday, observed mainly by the Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran denominations.  A smudged cross of black ashes is drawn on the forehead of the believer as a sign of repentance at the beginning of Lent.

Since 2007, many Episcopalians have participated in a practice begun by Reverend Teresa Danieley in St. Louis, Missouri.   Rev. Danieley decided to offer the ashes to people on the street.  Now over 70 Episcopal parishes in 18 USA states offer ashes to anyone who asks at train stations, street corners, coffee shops, libraries, parks, and other public places.  They say that they view it as an act of evangelism.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the taking of the ashes is a solemn event which should happen within a church, during a religious service with Scripture, prayer, and calls for repentance.  

What They Think of Us: Woody Allen on the Sign He Wants from God

"If only God would give me some clear sign!  Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank." Woody Allen

Many people want God to be their personal magician or financier.  They want God for what He can give them.  Others want some sort of irrefutible sign.  I will believe if you show me plainly who you are.

God has already given us Himself.

The Jesus Vine

I do not for one second believe that this is a divine manifestation, but it is very interesting.  Every time something like this happens people rush to declare it a "sign."  To me it is a sign that people are desperate for "proof."  The problem with "proof" is that knowing is not faith, knowing is not trusting.  The devil and his demons know, and they believe (James 2:19).

A self-described non-believer noticed that a patch of kudzu vine on a telephone pole in Littleton, Colorado resembled Jesus hanging on the cross .  Pause the video at 00:55 and look at the clearly visible face.

The signs are all around us for anyone who has not intentionally shut their eyes and ears.  We don't need to see Jesus in the water stains on a wood door, on the browned portions on a piece of toast , in the shape of a cheese puff , or in a vine hanging on a telephone poll.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork." Psalm 19:1

Holy Cow! Jesus is in My Screen Door!

In early December of 2009, Moses, a half-Jersey half-Holstein calf was born on Brad Davis' farm in Sterling, Connecticut. What is special about Moses that made the international news is that on his forehead is a patch of white hair in the shape of a cross. Some have already started with the predictable "maybe God is sending us a message from above." No one is sure what message God might be sending on the forehead of a cow. It's the wrong place anyway. As one sarcastic blogger opined, "... religious icons should only appear in cheese ... you can find that in the Bible."

In the film, Screen Door Jesus (2003), it's not a cow's head but the front screen door of Old Mother Harper, an old black woman in a small Texas town. On the screen some, but not all, see the smiling face of Jesus. the entire population of the town and then the outside press show up in Mother Harper's front yard and start taking sides. So many people come, tramping her flowers and leaving trash, that Mother Harper gets righteously annoyed.

It seems that Jesus (or sometimes Mary) appears everywhere: on billboards, in pictures of spaghetti, in water stains, in the shape of a deformed Cheeto, etc. and that pathetic people desperate for a proof of what they want to believe rush to worship the holy item. Jesus told us that we don't need that.

"Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed:blessed are theythat have not seen, and yet have believed." John 20:29.

Rushing to fawn over a piece of cheese or a Jesus shaped mushroom brings ridicule to the Church. They already think we're crazy and then we prove it.