I spotted a flash-looking BMW the other day sporting the number plate ‘I DOC’. I’m presuming it belongs to an ophthalmologist. That got me thinking about customized number plates, which led me to the SA government’s EzyPlates website, which led me to Googling other examples of clever (and not-so-clever) number plates. Like the number plate on a well-used four-wheel drive, ‘MUDDY 1’. Or, the hotted-up late model Commodore (P-Plate attached) with the number plate ‘BOOKME’. (Nothing like being inconspicuous!) I quite liked the number plate ‘BAA BAA’. That one is on a black Jeep, of course (Think about it). Then there’s the number plate ‘TI3VOM’ on a Ford Mustang. That one works best in the rear-view mirror!

That got me thinking, if Jesus owned a car, what sort of personalised number plate would his car have?

~ Pastor John

A small child finds a caterpillar in the garden and excitedly brings it inside, finds a jar, fills it with leaves and watches in wonder as it builds its chrysalis. The first thing the child does every day as he gets out of bed is to check the jar. One day a small hole appears in the chrysalis and a butterfly starts to struggle to come out. The child watches and starts to worry that the butterfly won’t make it out of the chrysalis, so he decides the butterfly needs some help. He takes a pair of scissors and makes the hole big enough for the butterfly to tumble out. The butterfly falls out but its body is swollen and its wings shriveled. The child waits expectantly for the butterfly to spread its wings and fly, but it never does.

In his kindness what the child didn’t understand was that the butterfly needed the struggle to push the fluid from its body to its wings to strengthen them. Without the struggle the butterfly will never fly.

~ Pastor John

On December 17 1903 bicycle shop owners Orville and Wilbur Wright sent a telegram to their hometown from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The now-famous telegram reads:

Success four flights Thursday morning all against twenty-one mile per hour wind started from level with engine power alone average speed through air thirty-one miles longest 57 seconds inform press home Christmas. Orevelle Wright.

The telegram was the announcement of the first ever powered, sustained and controlled aeroplane flight. A momentous, historic, world-changing occasion. There’s an apocryphal story told that the headline of the local paper that day was: Wright Brothers Home For Christmas. Now, no doubt, that news was worth celebrating, but perhaps the brothers themselves were expecting a different headline.

When Jesus healed ten lepers, I suspect he was expecting a different headline too.

Pastor John Strelan