One of the hottest YouTube videos is one where evangelist Louie Giglio introduces the molecular cellular structure called "laminin." Giglio uses laminin to show how we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." I want to use laminin to challenge you with a fearful and wonderful choice. It's a choice that determines how you go through life: trying to hold yourself together, or being held in the hands of a loving God.Are you trying to hold the whole world in your hands? Or have you let God hold the whole world in God's hands? Every year or so a flurry of activity on eBay indicates the discovery of a new "relic." In the first thousand years of the church, "relics" surfaced at regular intervals. Splinters off the original cross. Fingers of the saints. Locks of hair from the apostles. Tiny bits of this and that from the "saints," preserved in "reliquaries" with handwritten explanations called "authentics," were the basis for church dedications and commissionings. Relics were supposed to "prove" the realness and relevance of faith. Nowadays we settle for somewhat more mundane proofs.
A tortilla is flipped and the scorch mark on it is the face of Jesus. A potato, cursed with the scourge of the 19th-century Irish famine, reveals a rotten center …aaaah, but look carefully . . . that rotten bruise is in the shape of the Virgin Mary. Pretzels, potato chips, spaghetti, snack foods, are suddenly given sacred stature because someone can make out some holy portrait in the fry-marks, burned bits, or organic wrinkles.
Some of my favorites: the "grilled cheese sandwich Jesus," the "Jesus Flapjack," the "Jesus on Toast" (a.k.a. "the Holy Toast"), and the twenty-first century version of the feeding of the five thousand, "Jesus on the Frozen Fish Filet" (the "Lord of the Fish Stick"). Can't we all agree that these are just plain silly?
Yet they show how easily we are swayed by what we think we see. They show how quickly we judge based on what's on the outside, not the inside. We all judge based on exteriors rather than interiors. Social scientists have repeatedly demonstrated that individuals recognized as "pretty" or "handsome" are also automatically accorded other traits. We assume those who are good looking are also "nicer." They are perceived as smarter, harder working, more energetic, even more trustworthy. Those who do not measure up are politely called "plain," but we really think they are odd, goofy, nerdy, ugly. In scripture, Jesus exposes this kind of rush to judgment as fatally flawed.
God prays for us as we reflect: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful.” (Psalm 139:14)
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends whose lives are spinning out of control. We are a hurting people who need to be reminded that God will always hold us together.
