One of my favorite children’s movies is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It’s about a candy maker who issues five gold tickets in various chocolate bars he sells so a child can become a partner in his business and help them to grow their business. What makes it interesting is how the five children who found golden tickets react to all the choices with which they are presented at the plant and how they make their decisions.
How many of you have green thumbs and can grow almost everything? How many of you have brown thumbs and wish you could grow anything?
Almost everyone with whom I have talked, listened to or read about has a different perspective on what they define as a burden in their life and how they manage or mismanage it. Reasons for such happenings are often blamed on others or circumstances as the cause. Most solutions they sought were based on what worked for others in similar situations but still left them with corrections that didn’t quite solve their dilemma.
In the 18 years I have been ordained a deacon, I probably have baptized a thousand or more children under the age of seven. In the early years I immersed or “dunked” them. As time goes on I now pour water over their heads so I don’t drop one by mistake, should my hands become too wet.
If I could offer a survey to all my subscribers that asked the question: Have you ever been afraid as a child, teenager, or adult, most, if not all, would answer yes. The range of responses might be about monsters living under one’s bed that will take you away, asking someone out and being rejected or losing a job if you made too many errors.
It is interesting to watch people who approach the sanctuary to receive Eucharist at Communion time. Most are respectful in the reverence they illustrate in bowing, receiving and blessing themselves. They realize that in addition to what they normally do to partake, that the physical presence of the resurrected Jesus is “actually” in the consecrated bread in whatever form it takes.
Mysteries can be fascinating if you have a mind that enjoys being challenged. Though finding a result of this may be what is sought, the real satisfaction seems to lie in the varying paths one is led down to receive a solution of what is meant by each twist and turn. The hope is one will have a clear picture of what is meant at the end of the journey.
God’s perfect plan for our involvement might seem over the top with the original Pentecost filled with a “strong driving wind,” “tongues as of fire” and speaking in different tongues, but why shouldn’t it be? We are created out of God’s love to build the Kingdom of God by bringing people to God. Without God’s help, we would not be able to accomplish this. We need to be of the same Spirit to spread His message of love through preaching, healing and forgiving.