Snatch the Pebble From My Hand Grasshopper

John 10:22-30
10:22 At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter,
10:23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.
10:24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."
10:25 Jesus answered, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me;
10:26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.
10:27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.
10:28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.
10:29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand.
10:30 The Father and I are one."

 

If you never saw the TV show "Kung Fu" chances are the phrase "snatch the pebble from my hand" probably  is still lodged somewhere in your mental attic, like grandma's old hat rack that somehow wound up with a pile of boxes in your real attic. The scene in the TV show goes a little like this:

 Kwai Chang Caine, played by David Carridine, is a Shaolin monk receiving training in the martial arts from his old mentor Master Ahn.  Ahn says that when Caine can "snatch the pebble from my hand" it will be time for Caine to go forth into the world and take on his adventure.  Of course it takes years of Caine training in the martial arts for this to happen.

The scene was so emblematic of the series, and so compelling in it's terse storytelling that the phrase and notion has remained with us, even as the TV series has faded from popular view.  It is funny the way little bits of music, poetry, or lines of text will find its way into our shared frame of reference. Sometimes those little bits of shared memory are sublime like the way almost everyone you will every meet can hum those notes from the first movement of Beethoven's fifth....you know, "Dum-dum-dum-dummm....dum-dum-dum-dummmmmmmm".   Sometimes they are far less so, like the way most people can recite the tag lines from popular commercials.



Yep, from commercials to the Mona Lisa some things just stick with you.  No one can snatch that pebble from your brain it seems.  We understand that these thing come and go actually.  Most of us of a certain age know what the phrase, "Where's the beef?!" means but my kids certainly don't.

But if you are like a majority of people I have ever met you have some pebbles on the palm of your mental hand that no one has been able to ever snatch away. They aren't poetry, music, or even bad advertising. They are words that rattle around your head spoken to you by someone you cared about that you cannot rid yourself of.  These mental background tracks haunt pretty much everyone.  Words of discouragement. Words of distrust.  Words of anger and hatred.  Words of disbelief.  We carry these pebbles around with us. We dare the people we love to snatch them from our hands, but our own reflexes are always seem a little sharper. The pebble remains.



What is it about us that we hold onto to things like that? Why in the world would we want to?  Why don't we just let it go?  (Trigger the Disney "Frozen" sound track in your head...) Psychologists have made small fortunes answering that question.  The long and the short of it is simple: we're looking at it backwards. We all want to think we are the hand holding the pebble of our inner demons but the truth is we are the pebble in the palm of our problems.  We can't get rid of our problematic pasts because those pasts are holding us, not the other way around.

Jesus says, "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one."

Jesus chooses to flip the script.  He sees humanity enslaved in the palm of the hand of our suffering and failing and sin, and makes the announcement that the Father has "snatched the pebble" from the hand of the world and placed it firmly in Jesus' palm.  Now nothing on heaven or earth can take us from the palm of God. In that place we don't have to pay attention to the nagging voices of the world.  We don't have to value what the world values.  We don't have to question our own value or worth based on the how the world sees us. God has taken us and claimed us for his own.  He welcomes us to only hear his voice and only pay attention to his words.  We are his sheep and his sheep "hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me" say Jesus. In the palm of God we go from a worthless stone to a pearl of great value.



Like a bad commercial that demands our attention even when we have no interest in the product the world and the devil continue to try to chant their words in our ears.  We know that those words no longer have any power.  They bear no truth.  The only truth is Christ's truth.   His truth is that we are his beloved flock and nothing can separate us from his love.  No power can force us out of God's hands and in those hands are healing, love, and wholeness. So, next time those fears, anxieties, or worries threaten to overwhelm you with their nagging voices you just think on who's hands you really are in and know the truth of his voice as it speaks the words of comfort and grace that promise that we are God's beloved and nothing can snatch us away.