January 26, 2022 — “Fly off the handle” (John 2:13-17)

“When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” John 2:13-17

“Fly off the handle:” Handmade axes in the United States’ pioneer days weren’t always the crowning achievements of technology and craftsmanship. Occasionally, a particularly poor design would result in the head unexpectedly zooming off its handle. Many people found this an apt metaphor for passionate bursts of rage.

Many look at the event in the Temple the day Jesus arrived and drove out the money changers as a moment where he flies off the handle. It is true that Jesus was angry with the way the Temple had been turned into a market place – instead of a place where people could worship the Father. But, a closer look at the event shows us that Jesus did not fly off the handle, he took his time to weave together the cords, perhaps saying to himself over and over again “Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” – until he finally moved slowly through the Temple, driving the people out.

The anger we feel when we see the wrongs of our society, when we see the way people are treated, or when we become angry when we see how G-d is being removed from our society, well, this anger is righteous anger. Sometimes, we need to act, in righteous anger, to say to the world, “We too, have a zeal for the Father, and the Son.”

Let us pray,

Lord Jesus, we do not like to fly off the handle, but sometimes we lose our tempers. Help us to find our peace in your presence. Amen.

Pastor Dave

January 25, 2022 — “Funny bone” (Daniel 5:1-6, 25-31)

“King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them. While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his legs became weak and his knees were knocking. This is the inscription that was written:

mene, mene, tekel, parsin

“Here is what these words mean:

Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and…it will  end. Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.      Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

Then at Belshazzar’s command, Daniel was clothed in purple, a gold chain was placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom. That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two.”

“Funny bone”

Here, “funny” actually refers to the word’s “strange” rather than “hilarious” connotation. The ulnar nerve in the elbow creates a very bizarre, tingling sensation when the surrounding bone experiences a strike. Considering the fact that it does (appropriately enough) run past the humerus in the upper arm, this idiom could still have other origins.

There are parts of the book of Daniel that are compelling — and there are parts that sound funny to our modern minds. But when a human hand appears as an “apparition” — and writes a message to the king — well, this at first just sounds funny, if not compelling, but then it turns out to be frightening. Just like there is nothing funny about hitting your elbow, or your “funny bone”, there is nothing funny about seeing a dis-embodied hand telling us our days are numbered.

Thank the Lord Jesus has our backs — no matter how many days we may or may not have left on this earth. We do not need to wait for an apparition to tell us where we are going — Jesus is preparing a room for each one of us whenever our time is up. And that promise comes through a cross — and an empty tomb.

Let us pray,

Lord Jesus, you have the words of eternal life which are written in the bible for all to read, study, and trust. Thank you for giving us these words of truth. Help us to write them into our hearts and heads. Amen.

Pastor Dave