“I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship”

In her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’. She used this phrase after witnessing the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the main organizer of the Holocaust. Eichmann’s defense of his actions was that he was simply doing his duty, following orders and obeying the laws of the land, hence he couldn’t be held personally responsible for the deliberate murder of millions of people.

Eichmann tried to defend himself as just an ordinary person – just another human being – doing his job, but his actions made a mockery of his defense. To be human is not to simply follow orders, to be human is to act as Martin Luther outlines in his explanation of the fifth commandment: “[That] we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbours, but instead help and support them in all of life’s needs”

Sadly, Hungarian-Canadian poet, Robert Zend may have been right when he said: “There are too many people in the world and too few human beings”.

~ Pastor John

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