The Spider Goes to Court
The following is a fictitious court hearing in which evidence was gathered and testimony heard to substantiate the beauty of Christ reflected everywhere in creation. It is easy to see the Lord's beauty in shimmering lakes, majestic mountains, and shining stars. Can we recognize, however, His wonder in the "creepy crawlies,"
Judge: "Eight legs, eight eyes; where is the beauty in that?"
Spider: "Your Honor, all spiders have eight legs, but some spiders have six, four or even two eyes. In fact, a few spiders have no eyes at all, and I know of one that has a single eye in the middle of its forehead."
Judge: "Like I said, where is the beauty in that?"
Spider: "Hey! To us spiders it's beautiful!"
Judge: "Please don't take it personally-I'm just trying to determine how spiders demonstrate the Lord's wonder. It's hard to fathom."
Spider: "If you will permit me, Judge, I will show with clarity how magnanimously spiders bring glory to our Creator."
Judge: "You use big words."
Spider: "I went to Yale."
Judge: "Yale University?!"
Spider: "Yes, I spent a lot of time in the Yale library spinning webs-great flies there!"
Judge: "Go on."
Spider: "I could take the better part of a day describing the wonderful attributes of spiders. To expedite testimony I will focus on just one-spider webs and the silk with which they're made."
Judge: "I appreciate that."
Spider: "Spider webs especially reflect the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. As a man, He was gentle, and in His humanity, fragile. His gentleness is reflected in the delicateness of our webs. Unlike your heavy buildings, our webs are extremely light. Did you know that you would have to collect a million spider webs to get a single pound of silk? Yet, despite the seeming fragility of spider webs, the silk with which they are made is extremely strong. Aborigines of Australia use spider silk as fishing lines and in fishing nets."
Judge: "Fascinating!"
Spider: "I would like to read a few facts about silk out of this book..."
Judge: "Wait a minute, you read?"
Spider: "Got to keep my eyes busy. Anyway, this book here says that spider silk is 'twice as strong as steel, finer than human hair and can be stretched to three times its own length.'* So you can see how silk reflects Jesus' gentleness and His strength at the same time."
Judge: "Not a bad argument, but where do we see Christ's beauty?"
Spider: "In the web itself. Spider webs are exceedingly complex and beautiful. The job of making a web is an incredible feat for a spider. If all the threads of a spider's web were placed end to end they would reach 300 miles!"
Judge: "No!"
Spider: "Yes, Your Honor!"
Judge: "How does the spider make all that silk?"
Spider: "Well, silk is actually a protein which is produced in the spider's silk glands. Silk starts out as a liquid, but hardens once outside the spider's body."
Judge: "Is it very durable?"
Spider: "Yes, but silk loses its stickiness after a few days and most web-building spiders spin new webs daily."
Judge: "What do they do with the old webs?"
Spider: "They eat them! That way they can recycle the protein-'Waste not, want not,' you know."
Judge: "I know, but it doesn't sound like it would be easy to fashion a new web."
Spider: "But, you see, Your Honor, that's why the character of Jesus is so magnified in our webs. The Lord has given us silk, a delicate, but strong material with which we make complex and beautiful webs.
"We could not begin to do this on our own-God gave us this ability. In fact, web-building is not learned; even newborn spiders can build complex webs. The Creator taught us these techniques before we were born! His instructions are so complete that we can build webs in total darkness without seeing what we're doing."
Judge: "Really-how incredible!"
Spider: "We're so good at making webs that NASA has even shown that we can spin them in zero gravity aboard the space shuttle. "All these characteristics of our webs-delicateness, strength, complexity, and, especially, beauty are characters of the Lord reflected in us."
Judge: "Impressive argument. You may creep down. Please don't scare anyone on the way out."
Judge: "I fully confess my skepticism going into this hearing. I can conclude nothing new. It would be arrogant of me to do so. I must remind all of you present at this court that the writer of Ecclesiastes has already recorded God's judgment on this matter of ugliness in creation. The writer states that 'He has made everything beautiful in its time.' (Eccles. 3:11)
"I would like to thank all the witnesses present here today-you have opened my eyes to the magnitude of Christ's beauty."
GOD Bless
Lourie and Sonya
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