Flirtatious Follies, Floccinaucinihilipilification[1], and Feasts of Purim
You know what that means, right? Of course you do … you and I live it all the time. I’m alive to the human general state of floccinaucinihilipilification – suspended as we are within this circle of sinful life – all the while flirting with disaster at every turn. Do you watch people flirt with each other, with life, even with God? I do. I’m not talking of the rather comical fluttering of eyelids – I can’t do that anyway, I get dizzy. Good grief, imagine fluttering eyelids at God … and some people actually do that figuratively! No, I mean the subtle messages we all give out that says “Hey there, I’ve got something you want; you like it, you want it? Come on, come flirt with me, and maybe if we play our cards just right …”
I’m embarrassed to remember the things I once did to flirt with girls … I still shudder to think what might have been if I had been any better at it – I had enough trouble as it was. And as for the times I’ve consciously flirted with death … if that had ever been successful I’d be dead three times over, no four, by now.
But some people never learn (not that I don’t still flirt a bit with some stupid things – don’t we all – I just do it more subtly now). Do you remember old Haman (chuckle)? You know, he was the master of flirting with disaster. There he was, senior official, power, money, and sex, what else does a man ever want? And what does he go and do? He flirts with disaster, casts the dice to decide the luckiest day to destroy the Jews (Esther 3). I mean, what an idiot! There he goes casting lots, appealing to some supernatural power to find out when to destroy the people of God. Talk about ironic, and stupid!
Of course at the time he probably thought he was being clever, and like any story when finished, we can easily look back and see how obvious the outcome was, right from the start. Hindsight we call it now. What a gift that would be if God turned our hindsight into foresight. But all we can do today is look back and try learning the lessons of the past.
So, after all the blood, sweat, and tears, all the manipulation, glamour and sex, the gluttony, and all the lying was over, we had a feast of hindsight (Esther 9:19). Purim we called it; because Pur is to cast lots. A feast to beat all feasts, to celebrate how God came through and closed the story, how His people came out on top again in the end.
Sigh. How many Purim feasts I could and should have held. All those times Jesus has defeated the odds cast against me. And wonder of wonders, His amazing grace when it was actually me who was stupidly casting the dice!!! All those times I‘ve flirted with the attractive, bright shining paths of death, and miraculously, undeservedly escaped.
So my dear possibly floccinaucinihilipilificated flirtatious fellow friend of mine, what have been the near disasters in your life? What’s your feast of Purim about? Write to me.
[1] Estimated as being worthless