Actually, It Is a Laughing Matter
We have a very serious set of scriptures today, and I assure you I am going to take them very seriously.
Really. I promise.
But first I just have to share with you the verses from our Hebrews text that make me laugh.
The author is talking about the sacrifices our forebears in faith made for the sake of God, and he says, “They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented– of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.”
I mean, that sounds pretty bad.
But look at that first sentence: “They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented…”
Being stoned to death, sawn in two, killed by the sword—I get why those three are grouped together as terrible fates.
But that last one—“they went about in skins of sheep and goats.”
I understand he’s probably alluding to poverty.
But it makes me think that the people of God counted fashion faux pas right up there with swords and saws and stones as a fate worse than death.
I mean, with everything else we have to deal with, now God is forcing us to wear sheep and goatskins? I wouldn’t be caught dead in that!
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