Can You Give Me a Hand?
“But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.” Galatians 5:15 KJV
Like many, I look around at our world today and can’t believe what I am seeing. Everywhere you look, it appears our world has gone totally nuts. When the New Year’s ball dropped, and issued in 2020, I don’t believe a single living person would have guessed this year would have turned out this way.
Covid-19 got us all off to a rough start. Initially we thought it was just some strange foreign bug that would just go away. Around March, all that changed and our worlds pretty much went into panic mood.
Next, everything shutdown and shortages started to appear. Customer service totally disappeared. It was almost like businesses felt the customers should just feel lucky they gave them some place to go. Choice? Well, that was no longer an option either.
For months we stayed confined to our own little homes. We bravely ventured out only to get groceries and necessities. We didn’t dare go near hospitals or urgent care facilities. All the aches and pains would just to have to wait for better days to be dealt with.
Gradually, governments started lifting some of the restrictions. Some felt this meant that there was a victory over the virus. Crowds returned and social interaction became less scary. But it was a false sense of victory. Instead of going to a quiet death, the virus has re-emerged, almost mocking our attempts to return to “normal.”
Battles ensued. Should requiring a mask be mandatory or does the government overstep its bounds by regulating what some feel is their freedom to make a choice? Does the government have the ultimate, complete control over our lives or are things like gathering in large crowds a choice for a citizen to make? Can our society, or economy, return to normal if our government doesn’t allow our children to return to their classrooms?
Passion is sometimes a very hard thing to find. I believe most people would love to find something to be passionate about. Many search their whole lives for a purpose for which they can devote their hearts to a cause.
Often our devotion to a cause wanes over time. Sometimes we get a little down because we truly believed our cause would last for the rest of our lives. Disappointment starts to overshadow our cause and our spirits start to lose interest.
The cause isn’t usually the problem though. Causes can require some really hard work. Aren’t passions supposed to be fun? When tough times require us to stick it out for a while, our passion can flee from us.
Disappointment is another passion killer. Maybe the cause wasn’t all we thought it was going to be. We start off with these lofty ideas in our head, then, we find out things don’t exactly run the way we want them to. It causes us to question whether this cause is really worth it.
The Bible is filled with stories of those whose passion is hot and heavy in the beginning, but quickly turns cold when things like disappointment and hard work show up. Just look at the Israelites when they were freed from the bondage of slavery.
They proudly marched out of Egypt ready to conquer the world. When bad things started happening, they forgot that their freedom was not just going to be handed to them. They would need to work on it to make sure it would last forever. “That’s not what we signed up for,” is what many of them shouted.
As they marched through the wilderness, time and again, disappointment raised its ugly head as they realized this wasn’t going to happen like they envisioned. Many just wanted to go back into the slavery they once lived.
If you are like me, you have never heard of Marsha Albert before. As a 15-year-old, she had a huge impact on so many lives. Up until a few weeks ago, I never realized she actually had a big impact on my own life.
Let’s take a moment before we talk about Marsha’s impact, though. To understand her story, you need to understand what it was like in America at that time. America, at that time, was in a period of transition. This transition was about to lead to some very turbulent years ahead.
America has often struggled with change. Usually the younger generation is the one that embraces change better. “Why is change necessary?” shouts the older generation. “Things are rolling right along and we have it so much better than our parents ever did,” they would probably continue.
Younger generations never really seem satisfied with those responses. It’s almost like they want to leave their own mark on society and they don’t want that mark to look anything like their parent’s mark. Remembering history and having respect for it seem to have no place in the society they envision. Change seems to be the only logical choice to them.
In a very close election, America decided it wanted a younger generation to replace the older generation. The funny thing is the Presidential candidates were about the same age. One just appeared to look and be so much older. Besides, this “older” appearing candidate had a stronger attachment to the older President who was leaving office.
The older President was leaving office with very high approval ratings. Yet America decided it wanted this “younger,” better looking man to be President. So America switched gears and lined up behind this new “young” President.
Things were not all peaches and cream for this young man though. It seemed like one problem after another developed during his presidency. To say he made some major mistakes would not be an understatement. People were even afraid America was going to be taken over by some foreign country.
When this young President’s reelection campaign swung into action, his entire staff knew he might be in a little trouble. They needed to develop a plan to make sure he got reelected. Maybe if he just got out and mingled with the people his good looks and charm could win enough voters over.
As if our situation wasn’t bad enough because of the coronavirus, then, in front of many bystanders and some pretty damaging video footage, a police officer takes down an African-American citizen. The officer apparently feels the need to exhibit his authority by placing his knee on the man’s neck.
Despite the pleas from the man, the officer seems to refuse to let up. As a result, the man basically suffocates and dies. This sets off worldwide outrage. The term being “American” seems to be equated with being racist.
Gone are the days when open discussion and actions seemed to hold more weight than people’s perceptions of you. History, good or bad, has no place in the learning process. No one wants to hear, “those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
The good parts of our history seem to get overlooked because some of the bad parts. It is as if we acknowledge progress we are showing a weakness to the cause. Name calling and anger have replaced dialogue.
Didymus is one of those Bible characters who seems to be searching real hard to find somewhere to place his passion. His name, Didymus, actually means twin. The Bible never mentions his sibling. We don’t know if he was the twin to a brother or a sister.
Didymus finds a cause to be passionate about. He is all in. In fact, he is so in that he would even die for this cause. Don’t get me wrong, Didymus would much rather live for the cause than die for it, but he is still willing to die for it, if need be.
The cause Didymus undertakes is not one that is particularly popular with everyone in the neighborhood. Some of those in authority are quite threatened by Didymus and others in his group. They are so threatened that they pretty much put a bounty on anyone in this group. Death will be the consequence of crossing them.
So Didymus and his group pretty much stay far enough away from those who want to kill them. But a problem arises. A real good friend of the group’s leader is very sick and he lives in an area where they know there is a bounty on them.
The good friend’s sisters send word to the group leader that he is very sick and probably won’t be around much longer unless he gets some help from the leader. Didymus seems to lead a chorus of the other members that tell the leader that it would just be crazy for them to return to that area.
The issue seems to die away. Then the leader says they need to go to where the friend is because he has died. The somewhat pessimistic Didymus realizes that there is no convincing the leader to change his mind.
Didymus stands by his passion, though. “Okay, if you are determined, I’m all in for dying with you,” he states. He doesn’t want to be without the leader because his passion is so strong. There would be no purpose for his life if the leader wasn’t around was probably his thought.
John F. Kennedy was headed to Texas as part of an effort to win over a state he was very far behind in the polls. Kennedy needed to win Texas to boost his reelection chances. The fact his Vice President, Lyndon Johnson, was from Texas didn’t seem to matter to the voters there. Kennedy was going to put in an all-out effort to win these voters over.
President Kennedy decided to get as close as possible to the people of Texas. A parade would form. Its starting point would be at the airport in Dallas where he would arrive. As part of that effort, Kennedy decided to sit on the back hood of a convertible. Doing this would allow the voters to actually see him.
As his motorcade went through Dallas, shots would ring out and one of them hit the young President in the back of the head. That shot pretty much killed him. The martyred President went from being a man struggling for reelection to being a national hero. His replacement, Lyndon Johnson, would be someone who radically expanded a change that the younger generation sought.
It wasn’t that Johnson pushed all the changes, but his administration, the Great Society, sort of gave a snub to society as it was. The younger generation then saw these changes, and not caring what the rest of society thought, as a method to expand their own causes.
The result was not pretty. Assassinations, riots, demonstrations, general unrest and disruption replaced a calm America. No longer was the fear of another country invading us our dominating fear. We no longer liked each other or our government.
This is where Marsha Albert comes in. When John F. Kennedy was shot, America was devastated. We were confused, hurt, and looking for answers. This ninth-grader must have been one of those seeking answers.
Marsha had a song in her head. I’m not sure where she heard the song before. It wasn’t a song being played in America. Still, a few days after the Kennedy assassination, Marsha wrote an AM radio station, in Washington DC and requested they play the song. After much effort, a disc jockey was able to obtain an imported copy from England.
The six word title was just what America was looking for. In those turbulent times citizens were just looking for the comfort and security of something to hold on to.
This little unknown British group was able to just do that with their little song: “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The group? They were The Beatles. The Beatle virus spread to an epidemic level. The British Invasion started and Rock n’ Roll history was changed forever. Thank you, Marsha, for the introduction.
When Jesus’ good friend Lazarus died, He decided to go visit him. His disciples, including Didymus, better known as Thomas, went with him. Thomas was willing to die for Jesus because he understood he didn’t want a life without Jesus.
A short time later, the bounty hunters would track down Jesus. They would kill Him by having Him nailed to a cross. Thomas was devastated. To say his passion took a hit would probably be an understatement.
When the remaining disciples gathered after Jesus’ death to figure out what they should do, Thomas wasn’t even there. He was too heartbroken. He would miss out on Jesus coming to see those remaining disciples.
When the other disciples told him about Jesus coming to see them, Thomas thought they were crazy and thus earned the nickname: Doubting Thomas.
If the story ended there it would be quite depressing. But it doesn’t end there. You see, Thomas rejoins the group of disciples. Many look at Thomas and believe he needed to see Jesus again to regain his passion. But he actually rejoins the group before Jesus reappears. It’s like he woke up and realized his passion didn’t fade because just because Jesus’ physical earthly existence disappeared.
Jesus appears and He asks Thomas to touch His nail scared hands. I seem to think Thomas says to Him, “No, I’m good. I realize now what You were really trying to teach us.”
Legend has it that Thomas took the Christian message as far as India. It is believed he died a martyr’s death and is buried in a small hill near an airport in Chennai (Madras), India.
The American idea has been the best form of government ever. We have freedom, opportunity, safety, and the right to have your idea be seriously listened to. That forms the foundation of the American idea. We all need to do a better job of respecting and caring for our fellow citizens. Without that effort the whole thing falls apart.
When things like pandemics, injustice, assassinations, and general chaos cross our path, often a blinding fear blankets us. We calculate each of our steps because we are so afraid of some hole we might fall into. Our logic tells us that if we fall into that hole, our very lives might be over.
We search for a hand to hold onto. Within its grasp we hope to find a security that is missing in our lives. The problem is, as much as we want to hold onto that hand, we fail to believe it can provide that security. Our fear never really goes away.
Why? To have true security, you have to have complete faith that the hand you are holding onto will never let go and that no force is bigger than its strength. There is only one Hand that can live up to those expectations: God’s Hand. Are you willing to hold on to those nail scarred hands as though your life depended on it?
Prayer: Dear Mighty Father, As I look around I see a world that seems to be falling apart. The answer is Your outstretched Hand right in front of us, but we fail to believe the answer is that simple. Please let us have real faith in You so our world can be restored. Amen.
