“Like a
madman who throws
firebrands,
arrows, and death,
Is the man
who deceives his neighbor,
And says,
"I was only joking!"
Proverbs 26:18-19
Did you know that Americans bought more than
1.5 million ‘Pet Rocks’ in the 70s? They came with a cool cardboard box ‘home’
and an instruction pamphlet on proper ‘care and feeding,’ and they sold for $4
a rock. That’s roughly $22 a rock by today’s dollar. Wow.
Younger people reading this might think I’m
pulling an April Fool’s joke, but, no, I’m not. We Americans really did buy
them. Many of us plunked down four bucks to buy a baby boulder. So maybe there
was a fool at the end of this fad – all of us.
But it was all in good fun, and no one was
harmed. I saw today that the marketing genius behind the fad, Gary Ross Dahl,
passed away on March 23 at the age of 78 in southern Oregon
Speaking of April Fool’s jokes, did you
realize that today is April First? Yep, this is the day of pranks. And I
thought I would do a little digging and see what I could find on the day’s
origins. Here’s what I’ve come up with. This comes from Charles Panati’s Extraordinary
Origins of Everyday Things:
“Many different
explanations have been offered for the origins of April Fool’s Day, some as
fanciful as April Fool jokes themselves.
“One popular
though unlikely explanation focuses on the fool that Christ’s foes intended to
make of him, sending him on a meaningless round of visits to Roman officials
when his fate had already been sealed. Medieval mystery plays frequently
dramatized those events, tracing Christ’s journey from Anna to Caiaphas to
Pilate to Herod, then back again to Pilate. (Interestingly, many cultures have
a practice, predating Christianity, that involves sending people on ‘fool’s errands.’)
“The most
convincing historical evidence suggests that April Fooling originated in France
“Throughout France
“In 1564,
however, in beginning the adoption of the reformed, more accurate Gregorian
calendar, King Charles proclaimed that New Year’s Day be moved back to January
1. Many Frenchmen who resisted the change, and others who merely forgot about
it, continued partying and exchanging gifts during the week ending April 1.
Jokers ridiculed these conservatives’ steadfast attachment to the old New
Year’s date by sending foolish gifts and invitations to nonexistent parties.
The butt of an April Fool’s joke was known as a poisson d’Avril, or
‘April fish’ (because at that time of year the sun was leaving the zodiacal
sign of Pisces, the fish). In fact, all events occurring on April 1 came under
that rubric. Even Napoleon I, emperor of France ,
was nicknamed ‘April fish’ when he married his second wife, Marie-Louise of Austria
“Years later,
when the country was comfortable with the new New Year’s date, Frenchmen,
fondly attached to whimsical April Fooling, made the practice a tradition in
its own right. It took almost two hundred years for the custom to reach England , from which it came to America
Okay, that was interesting. I like history.
But now I wanted to hear some awesome pranks that people have done. And, after
a little searching, I found several that pretty amazing. Here are a few of my
favorites:
Burger King Fragrance
for Men – Burger
King in Japan Japan
Spaghetti Harvest in Switzerland Ticino , Switzerland
Color Television in Sweden
The Islands of San Serriffe – This is one for
the more nerdy set: On April Fool’s Day 1977, the British newspaper, The
Guardian, published a travel supplement on the tiny tropical republic of
San Serriffe, “a small archipelago, its main islands grouped roughly in the
shape of a semicolon, in the Indian Ocean,” which was purportedly celebrating
ten years of independence. The supplement celebrated the fact that
parliamentary democracy had been “in part successful” and the caption under one
of the photos described “the many beaches from which terrorism has been
virtually eliminated”. The special report included a variety of typographical
jokes including the two main islands - Upper Caisse and Lower
Caisse .
A Little
Weightlessness
– Astronomer Patrick Moore announced on April 1st, 1976 the
impending arrival of a once in a lifetime astronomical event in which the
planet Pluto (when it was still considered a planet) would pass directly behind
Jupiter. Moore
Penguins – In this brief BBC
documentary produced in 2008, film maker and writer Terry Jones reveals a
colony of penguins unlike any other penguins in the world. You can watch this
amazing video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4.
Ah, that’s all fun. It’s actually kind of fun
to be fooled sometimes. And being fooled by these little pranks can prove
instructive. It reminds us of our too-human propensity to play the part of
fools. We can all be deceived, and even when we sidestep one deception, we can
fall into another. We laugh at the person who falls prey to a joke, and then,
we turn and fall prey ourselves.
This tendency to fall into deception is
concerning, because most deceptions are not funny or well-intentioned. Most
deceptions are designed to either take advantage of us or hurt us, and we would
be wise to be alert to the possibility that we might be being deceived.
Nowhere is this truer or more dangerous than
in the spiritual realm, as that is where our eternal destinies are at stake.
Beyond that, we know that it was the serpent’s deception of Eve that
precipitated humanity’s fall into sin. And we know that it is the deceptiveness
of our own sinful natures that nurtured our continuance in sin and death.
Indeed, it is only as He Who is “The Truth” came and liberated us, that we were
able to escape the bondage of deception and walk into the Light of God’s Truth.
Today, I would like to encourage you to watch
out for two powerful spiritual deceptions at large in the world today. The
first is the belief in the non-existence of God. This deception is nothing new,
of course. It has been propagated throughout human history. Today it has been
championed by writers such as Richard Dawkins and Isaac Asimov. But the
Scriptures are clear on this deception: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There
is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1) – Now, since I’m writing here to believers, I am not
delving into the arguments for God’s existence, nor trying to prove the
atheists wrong. I take it as a given you have already concluded that they are.
What I am focusing on here is an encouragement to you, as a believer, to be
wary of the proclamation and infiltration of this world-and-life view, into our
homes, families, and communities. We could spend much time here pondering the
ways in which atheistic thought has penetrated the homes of Americans, but time
will not permit. Let us simply be aware of the danger.
The second powerful spiritual deception I
would encourage you to watch out for is a belief in the non-importance of God.
This is a more subtle but, I believe, more pervasive deception. This line of
thought permits the holder to slide into an easily held position concerning the
existence of God (ranging from the “well, I think there probably is a God” to
the “yeah, absolutely, I believe there is a God”) and then relegate that God to
a position of no importance in his or her personal life. Within this deception
is this presupposition: God’s existence just doesn’t really matter.
This latter deception is a great threat to us
believers. If we are believers, we must remember that we came to Him in faith.
We must be wary of our tendency to wander. If we do wander, we may find that
the sun stills rises and the rain still drops, and we may mistake this common
grace for divine impotence, seeing it not as it truly is, as divine forbearance.
“Things remain the same,” we might conjecture, “whether we are faithful or
not.” And we will find ourselves playing the fool, forgetting that every good
and perfect gift comes from His hand, and that our salvation is realized “out
of faith, unto faith.” We must remain wary of this deception. Let
us examine our hearts and see if there is yet any disbelief within them.
My father passed away on March 31, 2004. He
died around 11 PM. Another believer came to me and said, “Praise God for the
Father’s stamp of approval on your father’s life, in taking him on this night
and not on April Fool’s day. He was no fool. He knew and loved the Lord.” Amen.
That was true. My dad knew the Lord, and he knows Him now. He was no fool, in
this life or the coming one.
May the same be said of us. May we be wise
and flee the deceptions of this age. May it be said ultimately of us that we
know Him, and that He is our all. Amen.
“Let no
one deceive himself. If anyone among you
seems to
be wise in this age, let him become
a fool
that he may become wise.”
1
Corinthians 3:18
--Christian Pilet
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