Ensign: Triskadekaphobia

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 13 September 2013

 

[Here's a message today that so bears repeating. Meaning I've used it before, and of course I don't take stock in any day being “lucky” or “unlucky”, but when I've lost my keys twice and lost my van once BECAUSE I FORGOT I WAS DRIVING IT, ALL IN THE SAME MORNING … I feel God is trying to tell me something in addition to “don't take yourself and what you're going through too seriously, I've got this”. And it bears repeating. – David]

So I’ve been spelling today's title word wrong all these years. The fear of thirteen as opposed to the fear of the day Friday the Thirteenth (we’ll get to that in a minute) is known as triskaidekaphobia and comes from the Greek for “three and ten fear [of]”. Why in our society such a prevalent fear or irrational reaction exists about the expression of a particular value (all a number is) seems to be even more prevalent and irrational – why you won’t find a thirteenth floor in many buildings, for instance – because we don’t know when or where it started. We can’t point to one point and say “there it is”; we like control, we like to know, with our fears as well as with anything else.

The thirteen that most comes to mind (oh, the fear of FRIDAY the thirteenth is “friggatriskaidekaphobia” beginning with the Norse goddess whose name became our word “Friday”) is the assembly of Jesus and His disciples for the passover – what most of us know as the Last Supper! (Curse you, da Vinci!) We don’t know if Judas was the last person to show up for dinner in John 13, but we do know he was the first one to leave by verse thirty; Jesus plus twelve disciples makes thirteen present. That and Jesus being crucified on what’s regarded by His church today as Good Friday led or may have led to Friday the 13^th being combined to become more than a horror film series.

I’m borrowing from Captain America or at least one of his writers here: “It’s not wrong to be frightened – you just can’t let fear dictate your actions.” Certainly when you and I are called to the fear of the Lord we aren’t called to quake in terror! Fear in the context we usually see it in regard to God we’d regard in today’s English as “revere” or “honor”, but if we are fearful of doing anything that displeases God, then we’re kept from doing something especially wrong to Him or others. In that case, along the lines of being afraid to touch a pan on a hot stove, fear is a good thing. Good for self-preservation.

“Let not your heart be troubled” appears twice in the fourteenth chapter of John, verses one and twenty-seven. Jesus’ words to His disciples before Gethsemane to pray, be arrested, convicted of a capital offense, and die was as much an admonition to Himself as it was to them. As the hours came down, come down for each one of us, it’s easy to be afraid. But fear like any other emotion is energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed but be redirected. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” So we’re told in Hebrews 12:2.

That’s far more important to guide our life by than any numbers, signs, or patterns, don’t you think? A Person and not a concept, a faith and not a religion, a vocation and a voice? “Despising the shame” doesn’t make it go away, it removes said state’s power to affect you. Acting in spite of one’s fear – to face danger when you are afraid, as the Cowardly Lion was told he did (in the book, not the movie) – doesn’t guard us from failure but it does keep us from being less than God created each of us to be. While you and I may not and have not and most likely will not be everything God created us to be, we’ll become more than we thought we could be. And in possibility, there’s God.

 

Sincerely yours,

David

P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book and I hope to be an encourager too! If you find that I’m not or you want me to get lost, just let me know, thank you!

We praise You, Lord, for this beautiful day You have given us! Please pray with me for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence and for physical and spiritual communities around our world.

Lord, we need Your strength to fight the natural disasters and human ills to ultimately treat the cause and not just the symptoms; until we who have power change, this world You have made us stewards of won’t either.

Thank You, Lord, for all those in leadership and service here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have been given as well as the promise of new life through Your Son. And may we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.