"Bear up the hands that hang down, by faith and prayer; support the tottering knees. Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down."

- John Wesley
The real Corn-King

I think it's time for a little Lewis*. Here he offers insight into the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand:

Once in the desert Satan had tempted Him to make bread from stones: He refused the suggestion. 'The Son does nothing except what He sees the Father do'; perhaps one may without boldness surmise that the direct change from stone to bread appeared to the Son to be not quite in the hereditary style. Little bread into much bread is quite a different matter. Every year God makes a little corn into much corn: the seed is sown and there is an increase. And men say, according to their several fashions, 'It is the laws of Nature', or 'It is Ceres, it is Adonis, it is the Corn-King.' But the laws of Nature are only a pattern: nothing will come of them unless they can, so to speak, take over the universe as a going concern. And as for Adonis, no man can tell us where he died or when he rose again. Here, at the feeding of the five thousand, is He whom we have ignorantly worshipped: the real Corn-King who will die once and rise once at Jerusalem during the term of office of Pontius Pilate.

- C.S. Lewis, The Business of Heaven, a portion of the reading for April 13th
* of course, I think it's always time for a little Lewis. It's scary how quotable that man is.


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Comments on "The real Corn-King":
1. Ashley - 11/01/2005 11:19 am CST

Wow. I didn't understand that at all.

I'm glad there are people smarter than me, or else we'd be in a whole lot of trouble.

2. Bill - 11/01/2005 11:44 am CST

You're brilliant Ashley!

There's a whole bunch of context missing from that quote. I believe it came from Lewis' book Miracles and I'm sure if you read the context it would make lots of sense.

3. Ashley - 11/01/2005 12:12 pm CST

Gotcha.

Whew. I feel better.

I do love the phrase 'Corn-King' though. I have a hard time taking it seriously, but it's such a fun title! "Good morning, Mr. Corn-King." "More syrup, Mr. Corn-King?" "How's your stock doing on the NASDAQ, Mr. Corn-King?" It's brilliant!

:)

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