There’s little more frustrating than trying to undo a knot but not being able to see where it starts and ends.
Sailors and Scouts learn how to use up to 25 knots for practical purposes. How many do you know? According to The Ashley Book of Knots there are over 3,850 knot types! Tying a knot is a life skill that most of us learn before going to school – the simple shoe lace. Even with this there are different ways of doing it and you will probably still be doing it the way you were first taught. If you get it wrong, then it can be hard to undo. Knots are like problems which if left unresolved can multiply until there is a tangle which seems impossible to unravel. Life can get like that.
- ‘We learn the rope of life by untying its knots’ – Jean Toomer
- ‘We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them’ – Albert Einstein
- ‘We look at life from the back side of the tapestry. And most of the time, what we see is loose threads, tangled knots and the like. But occasionally, God’s light shines through the tapestry, and we get a glimpse of the larger design with God weaving together the darks and lights of existence’ – John Piper
Erich Weisz was born March 24, 1874 and became an expert with knots, especially slip knots. Taking the stage name of Harry Houdini, he was a Hungarian-American stunt performer but his daring escapes whilst hanging upside down or under water were done through a sleight of hand. Like many magicians, he distracted the audience but passed out during his final show and died at just 52 – death is one knotty problem none of us can escape. All too often there are things that we wish we hadn’t done, but what’s done is done and there can be no undoing of it. Covering it up through lies or denial will not remove the consequences but just compounds the problem until we face a mass of knots threatening to entrap us. Another Hungarian invented a popular puzzle in 1974 that still baffles many of us.Sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik was born in 1944 and invented ‘The Rubik’s Cube’ but Feliks Zemdegs solved it in 4.22 seconds in 2018!Death cannot be eluded so easily but one person has solved the problem and is able to undo any knot.
- ‘When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit’ – John 19:30
- ‘Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die’ – John 11:25-26
- ‘But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true: Death swallowed by triumphant Life! Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now? It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!’ – 1 Corinthians 15:5-57
The cross of Jesus is full of mystery. Some saw it as a failure, some see it as a monument or ornament but many people have worked out that it is the key to unlock the human problem of death. Ironic isn’t it that death unlocks death?! It’s time to stop looking at the insoluble knots. Whilst we cannot undo what’s done, our undoing is ‘done up’ by Christ and what he does cannot be undone or redone. If this isn’t something you’ve yet worked out, spend some time looking at the cross and the one who hung on it – it will dawn on you, a bit like one of the those ‘magic pictures’ and you will see it. In that moment of realisation, you can be sure that all your wrong-doing will be ‘done in’, ‘done for’, ‘finito’, finished. Why? Because Jesus says so. And with that comes the chink of light beyond the grave that awaits, the light at the end of the tunnel of life and the way to find yourself. You can’t add to what Jesus has done or take away from it so go for it and know that it really is finished.
TAGS – complete, solution, answer, curious, reason, forgiveness, pardon, restitution