"The Bigger They Are..."

You put your can of soda in the freezer to cool it off faster.  Not sure it really works that way, but you do it anyway.  Then you forget it’s there…until you open the freezer door the next day. We’ve all done it and seen the effects of a frozen soft drink on a previously symmetrical can. Sometimes the freeze actually bursts the can, right?

The same principle works in multitudes of ways:

• A small fulcrum and a long lever can give a weak person the strength to move a very heavy object.   
• A small, but canny combatant uses the weight of a larger opponent to throw him to the mat.  
• Invisible air is pumped into a leather football until it bursts.

In the city where we live, a certain home builder has the reputation of building top-quality, beautiful houses.  If you have the money (he’s not cheap) and the patience (he’s not fast), your new house will be known because he built it.  I think of him here because of something that happened some years back.  A beautiful home was built in a gated community.  Somehow, a water leak was gradually slipping down through the topsoil and making its way into a large pocket of clay below the house.  Rather than leech through, the water kept swelling the clay in the same way that frozen soda swells an aluminum can.  Though a few feet underground, the clay kept swelling and pushing up on the topsoil above it.  All of it put pressure on the foundation of the house, eventually causing a crack...

which grew larger...

and larger...

until the beautiful, well-built house split down the middle.  I think I read once that the crack was ultimately about six inches in some places.

And it all began with a tiny drip of water!



In the grand scheme of things, a tiny lamb would usually go unnoticed.  At Christmas, we often think of the lambs as attending the scene in the stable, along with the cows and the camels.  It’s easy to overlook the Lamb in the manger.  Innocent, a baby child will grow to be announced as the Lamb of God, who will take away the sins of the world..  At His birth, this Lamb was viewed as a threat to a regional puppet “king.”  Before He’s done, He will be accused as a threat to Caesar himself and hung on a cross to stop Him.

We pick up the story of Mary’s little Lamb this weekend at Stone Ridge Church.  If a drip can split a house in two, this Lamb has no problem messing with the most powerful government of His day.  If He could do that, He can do something pretty powerful with you and me, too!  “Mary Had A Little Lamb” is our topic again this weekend at Stone Ridge Church.  Please attend and invite a friend…you’ll be glad you did!  Can’t be there?  Catch the podcast!