Watch Out For Fake Rolexes
Years ago, when I lived just outside of NYC, my wife and I received a lot of visitors. One of our favorite things to do was to take our guests into the city to see the sites. Usually, included in this tour was a trip to Chinatown. The food was great and our guests always enjoyed the unique gift shops we found there.
Without a doubt, the most popular gift item was always the ten-dollar Rolex watch. Virtually all of our guests went home with at least one. They looked real, so long as you didn’t look too closely. But you couldn’t rely on one to keep accurate time. Not even close. As far as watches go, they weren’t worth the ten dollars.
These fake Rolexes (Fauxlexes) are big sellers for one reason: somewhere, other than in China Town, there are real Rolexes. If there weren’t real ones somewhere, there wouldn’t be a market for the fake ones. These knockoffs owed their very existence to the public’s desire for the original.
Jesus warned His followers that there would be no shortage of false prophets in the world. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that there are wolves in sheep’s clothing in the Church, and we certainly shouldn’t allow them to cause us to question the truth of the Gospel.
Charlatans exist because the real thing exists. Forgeries are never made of forgeries. They are not the truth, but they are proof of the truth.
"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves" (Matthew 7:15).
The Power Of An Apple Seed
I peeled an apple for my 2-year-old grandson today. As he was eating it, a seed became visible. He pointed to it and said, "bug!" So I explained that it was really a seed and that if he planted it in the ground it would grow into a huge tree and the tree would grow more apples with more seeds in them.
As I explained this, I realized this must have sounded fantastic, even magical to my young grandson. That’s because the power of an apple seed, like so many things we take for granted every day, really is magical. We just need the heart of a child to see it.
Jesus "called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:2-4).
Do Bunnies Lay Eggs?
Taysha Murtaugh, with ABC's Woman's Day, writes:
According to Google AdWords, the phrases Do bunnies lay eggs and Do rabbits lay eggs each receive between 1,000 and 10,000 average monthly searches. That's a pretty big number, which leads us to believe that people sincerely do not know.
... Allow us to clear this up: No, bunnies do not lay eggs. As placental mammals, rabbits develop embryos inside a uterus and, after a pregnancy lasting about 31 to 33 days, give birth to a litter of often 12 or more bunnies.
If you found your way to this article by searching that very question, don't feel too bad. There's probably a reason for your confusion, and that's Easter. The Christian holiday, of course, has two very famous symbols, bunnies and eggs, with the former delivering the latter.
So why is there an Easter bunny when rabbits do not lay eggs? The idea actually comes from a pagan celebration of spring, which was eventually linked to the religious holiday. According to the legend, following a long winter, the goddess of spring, Eastre, turned a frozen bird into a snow hare that could lay colorful eggs.
When it comes to religion, there’s a lot of contradictory information out there. Besides the confusion over whether bunnies lay eggs, there’s another popular myth that needs to be debunked. It's the one that suggests that all religions are essentially the same.
This is where the Easter story really helps to clear things up. The resurrection, and the hope that it provides of victory over sin and death place Christianity in a class all by itself. Only Christianity offers a resurrected, victorious Jesus who came to die for our sins. Only Christianity offers a Savior who rose again. Only Christianity offers proof positive of life beyond the grave.
Easter teaches us the uniqueness of the Christian message. So don’t lay an egg when it comes to the Easter story. Know the myth from the reality.
"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).