Isaiah 11:6 - "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them."
On top of the venomous snakes, Men-in-Black-sized giant bugs, and the good Lord alone knows what else, rumor has it that we have a skunk. To be more accurate, a skunk family. Living under the main water fountain that, for some reason, has a giant hole to the underground right next to it. I've been inclined to think it's an urban legend of this one twenty-something, summer-long male counselor. But the legend of the skunk is so in my head that I can't bring myself to reach into the hole that goes under the water fountain to get the ping pong ball that's in sight and clearly in reach for fear that the supposedly domesticated skunk or one of his teenage rebel sons is actually a flesh-eating stink pot set on revenge for the people who built a church camp on his great-great-grandfather skunk's property! And I don't feel so bad about it because there's another counselor here who's as big as at-one-time pro football sack leader, Reggie White, who I played with in college, and this huge almost Reggie White look-alike hasn't been in a rush to get the ping pong ball either!
Oh, I don't know, maybe it's not skunk fear at all. Maybe it's my animal lover side maturing and just wanting to leave the stinkin' thing, I mean, poor little skunky pooh alone in peace with his cute little Peppy La Pew family.
I mean, you did hear that I saved a turtle that was plodding along a major thoroughfare on Saturday, didn't you? Yep, I sure did, Suzanne Brown and all the rest of you who think I don't like all animals just because I'm allergic to cats and got bitten by mean ol' Freckles the dog up the street when I was a kid! Yep, that turtle was trying to cross Hwy 150, looking for his son, Nemo or Yurtle or some other Disney Seuss turtle name. So my son and I did a U-e and went back and rescued that ol' guy who, at that point, had somehow concluded that his shell was stronger than two Michelin tires that should have turned him into an instant bowl of turtle goop, I mean, soup or some other scavengerish delicacy. My three times bigger and stronger than me teenage son did point out, though, that I probably didn't do the poor guy's family any favors because I put him on the opposite side of the road, so a family reunion for the Urtle family might as well have the Berlin Wall imposed between them. Oh, well!
In the end, this whole thing today is actually about today's Bible verse, where, in sum, God's saying, through Isaiah the prophet, that God's redemptive work touches all creatures, great and small, not just humans, but a bunch o' critters living in some better than Disney-Seuss kind of peace together as noted in Isaiah 11:6, "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them."
And to sum the sum, God's saying that, if it's living and breathing, God cares about it -- people, skunks, turtles, and all. And I'm quite sure that God's care for all living things is true, though the first day of this beautiful camp and awesome new friends and our group name, TreeHugger5, may already be taking a toll on my ability to think rationally.
But hey, life with Jesus and especially his grace do have a little irrationality about 'em, so spread the love people, rescue the turtles, and don't bother the skunks. God is good to all creation! So, in the strength of Christ, let's us be too!
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
No comments:
Post a Comment