“You don’t go by monopoly, man.! That game is nuts.! You don’t just pick up “Get out of jail free” cards! Those things cost thousands… “Creed- on the Office

Ivy again asked about Peter. Since last Sunday, when she first heard the story, she has been fascinated with Peter being in jail (and a little worried—Acts 12). “Why did the King [Herod] put Peter in jail?” “Why did the soldiers obey the King?” And for the week she has asked these questions everyday, over and over—no answer is satisfactory, because she can not understand, why anyone would want to put Peter in jail? In her mind, only the bad guys end up in jail… so how could Peter be in jail?

But the world does not function as it should, and soon enough Ivy will learn that we live in a broken place. So we do not stumble over the evil King, Peter in jail makes sense. Where we stumble is the place where Ivy has no issue—the Angel saved Peter. For her that is the only event that makes sense in the whole passage.

Here is the interesting thing, after I have tried my best to explain the problem of evil in the world… Ivy repeated, “Peter was in Jail, but the angel saved him.” Then she told me, “Jesus was on the cross, but he is alive.” I am not sure I would have tied these together, but they are certainly connected. The life Jesus lived brought persecution. While many of us are scared, there is hope in the darkness, for Jesus is Alive. And really this is the only answer to the problem of Evil. The world is nuts, but Jesus is alive.

Random thought on a Child’s understanding of Morality: The NY Times had a great video of a Yale study on babies (and an article, but it is seven pages so I am still reading). They set out to test if babies could identify morality (good/bad) from birth or if it was a learned trait. I will post the article online. It is very interesting, and it also seems to point to the idea that CS Lewis proposed as proof of God—that all humanity has a built in law of right and wrong, no matter nationality or culture. This concept was rejected by science, which considers children amoral (without morals) and that they must be trained. Anyhow, check out the video below or for the article click here.