Seeing shadows of Him in double entendre...

Book of riddles

There are many ways to tell a story. The cowboy poets gather to tell stories in rhyme. Short stories are told in songs, and longer ones in ballads. Stories are told in pictures like cartoons, pictographs and animations. Sometimes in photos. Long stories are often found written in books. Scientists find stories written in the rings of the trees and patterns in the rock. Policemen find stories in fingerprints and other evidence. I will tell a story about a story told in riddles. At the end of the story, you will get a special invitation to read the riddles this story is about.

There once was a good and clever king. This king saw people who were suffering in the kingdoms around him and decided that when his son reached a certain age, he would go on a secret mission to the other kingdoms and tell the people they were welcome in his. As his son grew, it became a burden for the king to think he would be separated from his son, since he loved him so much. The king wished to collect mementos of his son to remind him of his love while he would be away, but doing so might give away the secret mission and put his son and his mission in jeopardy.

The king started writing a history book, or so everyone thought. But rather than writing a simple history of his kingdom, whenever he saw something that reminded him of his son and his great love for him, he wrote a riddle, hidden in the history, that only he could see. Sometimes he would write riddles about what his son was doing, and sometimes he wrote riddles about the mission his son would be on.

Occasionally someone would suspect that there might be a riddle in the history, but the interesting thing about riddles, is that you must know something about the answer already, before you can solve it. Since they didn't know anything about the son's mission, they gave up any hope about solving the riddles.

One day the king saw the wind tear a piece of cloth in half that was hung out to dry, and it reminded him of the impending separation from his son. So he wrote in his history about the incident. When he saw the snow fall on the muddy earth it reminded him of how his days would be brightened when his son was around, and when the river turned to ice in the winter, it made his think how lonely his son would be away from him. So his history had stories about these silly things. Silly to others, but each reminding him of his son.

Over time some people suspected that the son might have a special mission, but they couldn't imagine what it could be. One day the boy was with his teachers as they were discussing the history. Not knowing that his mission was a secret, he would tease the teachers with questions about the history. Who is the cloth and who is the snow, he would ask. And as he asked the questions, the teachers saw that indeed there was a riddle, and they started putting all the pieces together. The way the boy asked the question, he was almost bragging that he was the snow, and the torn cloth. Could it be?

As the boy approached the time of his mission, some of the teachers had figured out the riddles and were determined to stop him and foil the mission. But they couldn't.

When he returned, he explained his mission to his friends and showed them that he and his mission were the keys to all his father's riddles in the history book.

Fable or real?

It may seem to some that the story about the wise and clever king is just a fable. Some people are afraid that the story is true. And some claim that it is a lie without looking at the riddles. But it is really for you to decide. You can read the history as a history, and it remains an accurate history. Or you can read the history for the riddles and learn of the Father's great love for His Son.

The king is God, and his Son is Christ Jesus. God and Jesus had been inseparable from eternity. There is only one God and they are both that one God. I can't explain it and I can't imagine it, but God says it's true. It was determined that Jesus would go on a mission, not just to invite us to join his kingdom, but to pay the price so that the other king would let us go. There were hints of his mission and the Hebrews began to expect a Messiah. But the details of his mission were kept hidden from them. The danger to his mission was real. Twice kings killed all the babies in their kingdom of a given age suspecting that the Messiah might be among them.

There was a danger from his own people as well. If they knew he had to die, some wouldn't have understood and they would have tried to prevent him from facing the cross.

When he was twelve years old, he visited the temple. Hebrew children were taught to ask "What are these stones?" among other things as a way to receive instruction from the teachers. Most children, when they asked the question would ask about a pile of rocks down by the water's edge. But when Jesus asked, he asked "What is the cleft rock? What is the stone that gave water? What is the stone that covered the well? What is the stone that Jacob used as a pillow?"

The teacher's were fascinated with this precocious child. They saw the stones all painting a picture of the anticipated Messiah. During the next twenty years, some of the teachers solved some the riddles and understood that Jesus was he. They also saw in the riddles that they would lose their power over the people. So they hated Jesus and tried to stop his plan. Jesus knew that they knew who he was and was most ungenerous when he called them a brood of vipers. The serpent was the first liar and he called them children of the serpent because they were lying to the people about him.

When Peter understood that Jesus was the son of God, Jesus showed him in the scriptures the places where it said he must die. The riddles he showed Peter might have included Mordecai being threatened to be hung on the gallows.

You see, his father collected riddles that would remind Him of his son while they were apart. They were only separated for three days, but for God who is outside of time, it could seem like an eternity. The riddles of the parted seas, the two tablets of the law, the torn veil were all mementos of Christ's mission.

So when Jesus returned from his mission, he shared with his friends on the road to Emmaus, all the places that the scriptures spoke of him. If we had been there we would know all the answers to the riddles. The reason that they didn't record them was so that we could take great joy in discovering them for ourselves, and in doing so see the Father's great love for his son and the son's great love for us.

So now you are invited to see and solve the riddles for yourself. But be forewarned. There are still wicked men who are enemies of God who do not want you to see Jesus for yourself. They will say that it is dangerous to read the Bible in this way. It is NEVER dangerous to read the Bible. If you don't know God, perhaps you will get to know Him there. If you do know him, you will see Christ everywhere.

There will always be people who twist and pervert God's word or want to be the high priests to whom you must bow to get to God. But there is nothing in God's word to fear; not in the literal teachings and not in the riddles.

Samson's riddle

Samson came across a lion and killed it. When he returned to the carcass, bees had made a hive and produced honey in it. Samson created a riddle in order to confound his enemies. Now remember what we said. A riddle can't be solved unless you know something of the answer already.

So his enemies threatened his wife and she found out the riddle from him and told them.

Judges 14:12 14 And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.

18 And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion? And he said unto them, If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.

Those who only read the history would think that the way to solve a riddle is to threaten someone. But the story is a riddle. So we must solve it in order to see what the real way to solve the riddle is.

I am going to cheat a bit by giving hints, since I already know the answer. We will prove them out later.

Hint 1: What do you plow?

Hint 2: What is a heifer used for?

You plow the earth, and a heifer is used for sacrifice. So you turn over or plow the earthly with a sacrifice. Hmm. Lets try again: You turn over the literal using the cross. There we go.

An interesting thing about riddles is that some people never get them, and some see them easily.

This is a strange story, but it reminded the Father about the Son. The Son is known as the Lion of Judah and honey represents the good things God created in the earth. Good things in the physical earth came forth from the death of His Son Jesus on the cross.