Some of our company this past holiday feast reminded me that truth is stranger than fiction sometimes. At least often harder to swallow.

What I mean by that is people can sure dream things up in an attempt to tell you something believable, but the truth itself is so fantastic it's often more difficult to accept. And I have learned my fair share of odd bits of trivia. The term cowboy had its origin in young boys flushing out and rounding up hogs from the woods (yes, they were referred to as "pig boys"). The Wizard of Oz was really a protest story about money (follow the yellow brick road!). There was indeed a rooster without a head that was a celebrity in Colorado for over a decade, bringing in thousands in tourist dollars. If you made these things up, in the hopes to trick someone would believe you, such stories are so over the top it doesn't seem likely anyone would. They go too far.

I got to thinking about this because of an old Victorian funeral custom. Some of the other customs from that era of history we still follow, even though we don't know why. A gentleman holding a door for a lady, or walking on the street side of her when strolling about, are a couple examples. The late Victorian era is when graveyards went from ugly places good for nothing else but burying dead people to landscaped, rolling peaceful cemeteries, more to accommodate the living than the dead. Yet we don't all own mummies anymore, and while nowadays we like McGruff to take a bite out of crime we don't hire folks to come to funerals to take a bite out of sin.

What was that last bit? Yes, it is a strange thing that in many places a family would hire someone to come along and eat the sins of the deceased. Biscuits wrapped in black wax paper, sometimes with the initials of the dead on them, would be handed over the body to the "sin-eater" and he would take on the consequences of the sins. That way my dear Aunt Sally (mathematically speaking of course! He that has ears let him hear) would go to the next life without sin. Some sort of play on the pluck out your eye or cut off your right hand thing. You probably think I am making this wacky custom up but I'm not.

Oh, it doesn't really matter if you believe me anyway. Its not like your life depends on it. Just pointing out that sometimes things that are true are harder to believe than something I did make up. Perhaps that is why folks struggle with the bible. Darkness for three hours? Ok, could have been an eclipse but who ever heard of a three hour eclipse? And don't get me started on that making the shadow move backwards event. Either the earth counter-rotated (impossible!) or the sun moved (also impossible!). Donkeys that talk? Floods that cover the whole earth? A race of giants? Someone who's dead for days suddenly being brought back to life? People living over 900 years? Rivers suddenly parting to reveal dry ground? Thousands eating 5 loaves and 2 fishes? And much more...

My bite story doesn't seem so fantastic in comparison, does it? We try to rationalize amazing scriptures, but we should remember for God, all things are possible. And his method of removing sin is a lot more digestible!

Randy