Marmite lid Jesus - an insult to the gospel


I love and hate stories like this!  (pic from BBC website - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8071865.stm)
On the one hand - we're all a bunch of nutters for thinking that this is anything more than human beings reading into the marmite residue whatever we like.  After all, in another time or place this could be Osama Bin Laden, any member of ZZ Top, or a slightly windblown homeless guy from the 60s that no-one has ever heard of.  But it's not the family's fault - they just took a photo and let us make up our minds.  I love stories like this cos they remind me that we're all superstitious and suggestible, and prone to believe anyhting we want to beleive - and the Bible tells us exactly that same thing.

But I hate stories like this as well.  Usually some 'Christian' leader from one denomination or other (somehow the Roman Catholics always speak up) is quoted as saying that this is a sign that Jesus is still with us, or that God has not forgotten us, or something like that.  And the person at the centre of it is allowed to believe that they are blessed or lucky or in some way special.  And it's at this point that I get really angry.
How cheap!  How shallow, is the idea that I am blessed by God because some fuzzy representation of a human being, said to look like Jesus, appears on the inside of a jam jar, or a piece of burnt toast, or my garage door.  That God would act in such a random, simplistic and unreliable way as this!  How dare priests or vicars allow this kind of superstition to persist, or indeed to let people think that it is an acceptable way of thinking in a Christian worldview.
Is this the face of Jesus?  NO!  Is this family particularly blessed or cared for by God because of this picture?  NO!  And the simple reason is this - that in the living person of Jesus Christ God has loved, blessed and cared for each and every person in the best possible way that He can.  He can love you no more than He does in Christ, or in no better way than to become like you, to take your human nature,to know you intimately, to love you dearly in Jesus Christ, and to take your weakness and pain and insecurity,  and nail it definitely and finally to a cross, and so to deal with it so definitely and finally, THAT HE CANNOT LOVE YOU ANY MORE THAN HE DID IN JESUS WHEN HE DIED, OR BLESS YOU ANY MORE THAN HE DID WHEN JESUS ROSE.

A marmite lid picture is an insult to the gospel, a cheap slight in the light of the Jesus who obediently died to save you.  How could you want for a fleeting picture to hold on to when you could have a real relationship with the real thing??  Why do you want yeast extract when you could have grace?!

Comments

  1. Anonymous6 June 2009 at 00:35

    Ahhh we are a people who love signs and symbols, we only have to look at our churches to see this within our own faith. We only need to check peoples necks for crosses, and cars for fish symbols.

    Sure, Marmite has nothing to do with the gospel as such, but couldn't it be another tool to speak about the reality of the gospel, the depth of grace in the same way Harry Potter might be above?

    Did God cause the face to appear? Stranger things have happened- I once heard of a donkey that talked. I am not one to attribute such signs and wonders of faces in the Marmite to a mighty God, but I am reminded of Paul who stood before a people and spoke of an unknown God.

    He used something of the culture, the trends, the superstitions of the day as a platform to the gospel.

    We often have such tremendous opportunities to do the same, when somebodies mind is open to the reality of Christ.... even if the messenger is a jar of Marmite! Perhaps we the church should be making more of such opportunity- not less.

    However, we can safely rest assured this is NOT an act of God. This is obviously just some cheap imitation satanic act... because let us face it after all, The God of the heavens would use Vegemite!


    :-)

    ReplyDelete

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