#7 You’re reading the wrong palm

#7 You’re reading the wrong palm

“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;”^[1]

For some reason, this scripture from Isaiah just jumped out at me while reading it one day. I immediately thought of all the palm readers and their vain attempts to foretell someone’s future by reading the lines on the palm of their hand or for someone else. Along with Tarot cards and Ouija boards, this fascination with trying to foretell the future is in direct contradiction to numerous warnings in scripture about fortune telling, such as Israel being commanded “Do not practice divination or sorcery.”^[2]

I think that this prophecy from Isaiah in part foretells the crucifixion of the Messiah – God in the flesh. Even these days, there are plenty of shops with a neon palm advertising palm readers who will read our palms to foretell our future. I am always tempted to just open the door and poke my head inside and say to the reader, “You’re reading the wrong palm!” Our palms do not direct or foretell our future, only Jesus’ does. Our destiny is written in the nail-scarred hands of Jesus, not the stars or cards or fortune telling. Palm readers all these years have been reading the wrong palm!

“Doubting” Thomas wanted to see the nail-scarred hands before he would believe that Jesus had risen from the dead.

²⁴Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.  ²⁵So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." 

²⁶A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!"  ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach  out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."  ²⁸Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"  ²⁹Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."[3]

Thomas knew which palm to read, and he demanded to see the resurrected Jesus’ nail-scarred hands, because then Thomas would know that this was the Jesus he knew, and not some shadowy apparition or figment of the disciples’ imagination.  This was the hand of the one who gave His life for all humanity, so those who would believe in Him would have eternal life and it was His palm which gave that assurance. And it is in Jesus’s hands that we find our future, not our own palm.

Please write a short Comment at the bottom of this post if you have some thoughts about this scripture. If this is an email, click on the Blog hyperlink to take you to the Blog so you will be able to comment. Pass this along to your friends too.

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[1] Isaiah 49:6a

[2] Leviticus 19:13b

[3] John 20:24-29

#6 The heavens declare the glory of God

#6 The heavens declare the glory of God … not our destiny.

“The heavens declare the glory of God”[1]

In the movie, Joe versus the Volcano, Joe the hero, played by Tom Hanks, wakes up on his life raft made up of four huge suitcases adrift in the middle of the vast ocean just as the moon rises into the starry sky, filling up the horizon with its radiant glory. He gets to his feet to behold this glorious wonder, and then sinks to his knees as he says “God, I had forgotten how big you are!” This is what David was speaking about in Psalm 19, that God’s glory (His character) is manifested in His creation to everyone. We are made to search out our creator, not worship the creation itself..

How subtly we change this scripture to make us think that the heavens declare our glory (not God’s) and our destiny. Astrology (literally ‘the stars speak’ in Greek) is as old as written history can attest, attempting to determine how the impersonal cosmos shapes our lives. Astrology is an extremely fatalistic view of life, which says that at best we can only tell what will befall us in an impersonal universe. Our newspapers for years have carried horoscopes and vague references to our future based upon our astrological sign. There’s even an app for that! Isaiah 47:10-15 gives a scathing rebuke to sorcerers and astrologers, mocking their magic spells and predictions. Leviticus specifically warns: “Do not practice divination or sorcery.”[2]

I had a good friend in the days of the Jesus movement who had been heavily into astrology before becoming a Christian. She would then witness with street people on Hollywood Boulevard, who would inevitably ask her under what sign was she born. She would reply that they would never guess – and they never could. When they finally gave up, she said that she had been reborn under the sign of the cross, and that erased all the superstition of astrological signs such as Leo or Taurus, and that they should consider being reborn too. She remembered her old feelings of fear and being lost which resulted from consulting her horoscope and fortune tellers, feeling so alone amidst the crowd on the streets of Hollywood, and she wanted people to know that there was hope for them.

The Magi who sought the new born king understood correctly that this one star was pointing to the baby Jesus, God in the flesh[3], the shekinah glory of God. They were directed to the Son of God, not their fate. Herod too understood that the heavens addressed all of God’s creation and took this sign seriously from these non-Jews, so he directed the Magi to come back with details of where to find the child. But when God wanted to give direction to the wise men, He did so in a dream, not by sky writing, and warned them not to return to Herod but to go home another way.

When we read further on in Psalm 19, verses 7-9, we see the mention of God’s law, statutes, precepts, commands and ordinances, which has been revealed for us to get to know Him, not the stars. These revelations of God’s character are given to the Jews and finally through the Messiah, Jesus, to all the world. Jesus is the living Word, who encapsulates a personal and moral relationship with a living God, rather than an impersonal and amoral cosmos that is capricious at best. This revelation requires a response to either kneel and obey, or to go our own way without God.

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[1] Psalm 19:1a

[2] Levititus 19:13b

[3] Matthew 2:1-12

#5 Hungry

#5 Hungry

“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life.

Whoever comes to me will never go hungry,

and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’ ”[1]

Have you ever had the “munchies?” Sometimes you go through the kitchen looking for something to satisfy your appetite, fulfill you, but you can’t find exactly what you want. You don’t want something too sweet or too heavy, but there is this insatiable desire to find it. And no matter how long and hard you look, nothing seems to be right. So you finally do settle for something, but after eating it you haven’t been satisfied and then you’re too full to try something else.

It’s amazing what we try to stuff ourselves with to make us feel happy & satisfied. It could be a pint of Ben & Jerry’s or a bag of potato chips. In graduate school I once read an account of a patient in a psychiatric hospital which began with “I remember the February when I ate nothing but Oreos.”

The great mathematician and Christian, Pascal, said (in French) “Inside each person is a God-shaped vacuum.”[2] That’s the way it is with our spiritual lives. We have a hunger and thirst for God which cannot be filled by anything else but Him. We can try money, professional success, drugs, alcohol, and a million other things. We sometimes try to make significant others into our god, but it just doesn’t work. In searching for the ultimate, we keep putting the penultimate in His place, and it just doesn’t do the trick. When we are honest with ourselves, we know when we haven’t found Him yet, but we are tired of searching and substitute something or someone else.

This is because we were created by God for a deep, personal and intimate relationship with Him. It’s as if each of us has a stamp on us that says “Made by God.” We are made more than just physical beings – we are made as spiritual beings, with a soul and personality. When we are connected to God, then we become better at our relationships with others, and ourselves.

So daily, read your Bible, pray to God and fill yourself with His word, which is the bread of life and living water. Then you are energized for a day of service to others.

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[1] John 6:35

[2] Blaise Pascal, Pensees

#4 Humpty Dumpty

#4 Humpty Dumpty (The Fall)

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.^[1]”

This familiar nursery rhyme, appearing first in Mother Goose in the early 1800’s, has much more to it than first meets the eye. It is said to have been a riddle, and that Humpty is an egg, which once broken, can’t be put together again, even by the efforts of all the king’s horses or king’s men.

But this nursery rhyme speaks a deeper truth about all human kind. We are each one of us a Humpty Dumpty, who eventually falls off the wall and is broken in pieces. Life is precarious and dangerous, and we shouldn’t be surprised when we take a tumble. Each one of us is broken in some form, some way or other, and each human being suffers in their own way. The rhyme says that this was a “great fall” not just a bump or a slight rolling over.

It means that the protective shell has been violated, shattered and the contents of the egg spilled out. Although the egg shell seems fragile, it really is quite able to withstand certain shocks and jolts in life, but this great fall is cataclysmic and means that we will never be the same again, even if the egg white and yoke are still intact.

And this great fall really alludes to the Great Fall of Humankind – original sin. We all are conceived in sin, born in sin and live in sin.  As the apostle Paul said, “There is no one righteous, not even one.” [2]

And no matter the effort, all the king’s horses (strength of will and powerful force) and all the king’s men (wisdom and good intentions) can’t put us back together again. Not self-help books, not pledges to be good, not self-denial or even over-indulgence; not our best friends or worst enemies, not all the powerful people in the world can make us whole. Not all the religions in the world (humans reaching for God) can fix our condition. This is a problem beyond mortal help.

Only the real King can do it, not His men and not His horses. Only Jesus, the real King, can make us right again, whole again. Unless we bow to the King, our condition is eventually hopeless and terminal. That is why Jesus’ warnings are so stern to His disciples and to those who followed Him for just bread or gain. Only a commitment to His Lordship will right our ship, heal our condition and make us whole. That is why He simply said; “Whoever serves me must follow Me.”[3]

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[1] Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), ISBN 0-19-869111-4, pp. 213-5.

[2] Romans 3:10

[3] John 12:26