The pharmacist told me he would have my medication in about 15 minutes. What do you do with 15 minutes? Go back home? Take a walk? Go to Taco Bell? Fifteen minutes…

I wandered towards the front of the store and happened to walk by the magazine rack. “That’s what I’ll do, I’ll sit and read their magazines!”  They didn’t have a single car magazine, so I had to see what else they had to offer.  A million women’s magazines…. no.  National Geographic and Time special magazines—Jesus is big at Christmas time. But as I paged through them, they seemed just like last year’s edition, same old questions and same old responses. 

And then, I found one I had never seen before.  It’s called, descriptively, Conspiracy Theories. What has this world come to that we heed the siren call of conspiracies to such an extent that they can produce a magazine about it!?  “Conspiracy Whatever Theories” is the way they present it.  Yes, the Epstein File redactions have made it into the collective consciousness so much that we associate a black marker redaction with conspiracy theories. Every page had varying degrees of black marker lines in it – those black lines graphically elicited the paranoia very simply and effectively.

And the conspiracy theories?  Let me list a few.  Was 9/11 an inside job?  Was the pandemic real?  Are contrails really poison in the sky?  (I was in Cuba many years ago and a pastor’s wife quietly told me that when jets leave those long cloud trails, it means that they are spying on you—that was a new one!). Did NASA actually land on the moon?  They elaborated on at least 20 conspiracy theories, so many my medicine was ready before I could learn whether the Clintons left a trail of bodies in their careers or not.

Christians are well acquainted with conspiracy theories.  Many skeptics have questioned the virgin birth, claiming it had to have been Joseph. God couldn’t do that! The Sanhedrin accused the disciples of conspiring to hide Jesus’ body while claiming He had risen. God  couldn’t do that! The feeding of the five thousand wasn’t a miracle of multiplication of bread and fish, it was a miracle of sharing. God couldn’t do that!  And as we start reading through Isaiah this month, many a conspiracy theorist cannot believe that a prophet could so accurately predict what foreign powers would do to Israel in the future.  God couldn’t reveal that to a prophet!  The book had to have been written after the events to get them right! I read just last week about a carbon dating test done in 2025 that suggested that the Dead Sea Scrolls version of Isaiah predates the last prophesies of Isaiah, hundreds of years after he died. Hmmm. Who’s conspiring now?

Conspiracy theories have their place. I think journalists and police need to pursue them routinely. You never know sometimes.  But when the questions rise to the level of magazine subscription levels, skepticism leads to disillusion at best, and madness at worse. Miracles demand faith, no doubt (so to speak). I believe that Jesus’ was a virgin birth. I believe that God raised Him from the dead.  Why?  Because listening to those stories explain why Jesus has transformative power in my life and in the life of others that I know. The reality is that Jesus makes a difference in your life. Prayer asking for intervention makes a difference. Heeding His teachings has changed civilizations and history itself.  How could that happen? Well, because Jesus was Emmanuel (Emmanuel means “God with Us”) on Earth and His presence and power today can only be explained by His eternal life received at the resurrection. And any hope that I have for an eternal zoe in the future is based on
Jesus receiving his bios back 2000 years ago.  (If you were in church last Sunday, or know a little Greek, you will know what I refer to here.)

I want to embrace the stories of the Bible. The conspiracy theories on the other hand?  Not worth the paper they were printed on.

Back from the pharmacy,

Craig

These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.  John 20:31

It doesn’t happen very often, but this particular Friday evening I had double-booked myself.  Not wanting to miss Circle of 8, I told my friend that I would have to show up late to the Panther’s game that he invited me to. I scarfed down my dinner and hustled to the car to get down to Sunrise for the game.

I got there right at the end of the first period and they were down 1-0.  It’s no fun to go to a game where your team loses. We settled in during the intermission, and the game resumed.  They, not us, scored again.  And then, in the third period, with 9 minutes to go, they scored again.  Three to nothing, I was depressed, the whole stadium was silent, except for a couple of jerks, I mean, brave souls way off in the
distance, who dared to chant “let’s go Hurricanes” – we were playing Carolina.

To that, a big guy right behind us yells out “We are going to win it!”  My eyebrows went up in disillusionment as much as surprise.  “You have to have F-A-I-T-H!” he bellowed again.  What?!

My theologically-trained mind met my disheartened soul, and I leaned over to my friend and said, “there’s a difference between faith and wishful thinking.”  I struggle with that in our Christian world.  Preachers, usually wanting a large donation, will say that if you just sow a seed of faith, that God will reward it ten times over. That for a small gift sent to their “ministry” they will pray and God will give whatever your little heart desires.  A Lexus?  Try it!  A big boat?  Send your $19.99 in and find out!  And that is not faith.  It’s wishful thinking (on the part of the televangelist if he thinks the gimmick will work on me!).  I digress.

There were 9 minutes left in the game.  We were down by 3.  And the energy the Panthers had put into this particular game made you wonder if they were trying out for figure skating, not NHL hockey.

And then, in the usual rhythm of the game, almost by surprise, they scored. The crowd cheered, but quickly sat down, not wanting to let too much hope back in their hearts.  And then two minutes later, they scored again!  At this point, I turned around and high-fived the faith guy.  Yeah, not me the preacher, but the big guy behind us.  He was the faith guy.  And then, in the last minute, came goal number 3. The
stadium, with all that ice even, began to bounce.

One of the things that turns happiness into joy is when the end you expected for a long time takes a dramatic and unexpected positive turn.  I think we all experienced joy that evening…except those brave souls from Carolina across the stadium somewhere.

The game had gone into overtime.  For showing up late, and starting with a disappointing score, I was getting one remarkable show!  The three-on-three yielded no score, so then we went to shootouts.  And the Panthers won it!

My glee was tempered by the doubt I had shown about faith.  Why did that guy behind me have it more than me?  Do I lack faith?  I don’t know, maybe.  That same guy probably went to the next game, brought his “faith” line to the subsequent game, but they lost that one.

No, the lesson to learn didn’t have to do with hockey, or the Panthers specifically. But it did have to do with the idea that hope and faith can shine in the darkest moments, in the times when the answers to our prayers seem the most unlikely to be answered. Hope in the One whom we ask never needs to be extinguished. No circumstance is beyond the capacity of God to resolve. A crazy hockey game reminded me of it.

Schooled at a Panthers game,

Craig

“And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”  Hebrews 11:6