No Luck
Published in the Omaha World Herald’s “From the Pulpit”
January 22, 2023
Reverend Eric L. Jay
“No Luck”
We have all said it at one time or another. Maybe we said it to a friend who was going for a job interview or to someone that was about to take an important test or give a performance of some kind. “Good luck!”
“Break a leg”, “cross my fingers”, “being fortunate”, “knock on wood”. These are all sayings that are used all the time and that all stem from superstition.
There is no such thing as luck, good fortune, or bad fortune. A black cat crossing your path doesn’t mean you should turn around and go the other way. It just means a black cat crossed in front of you. Breaking a mirror doesn’t mean you have bad luck. It means you need to buy a new mirror.
Superstition is misplaced faith. In our sinfulness we try and search for patterns, signs, omens, or something we can use to try and calculate or control the events in our life. It’s counterintuitive, but superstition is all about control. Our sinful nature finds it easier to believe in the foot of a rabbit or in the mystical power of wood than to trust in the sure promises of God; promises He has proven we can trust.
Control is what the devil tempted Adam and Eve with in the garden. He deceived them into thinking the fruit had some sort of hidden power and knowledge that they could attain and use rather than believing and trusting in God. The only power and knowledge that the fruit gave to Adam and Eve was that of evil and sin. God told Adam and Eve that if they ate of it they would die, and die they did, because as Scripture says, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Bad luck or misfortune didn’t bring pain and suffering into the world, disobedience toward God and faithlessness did. God promised Adam and Eve that He would bring about a “seed”, a child from Adam and Eve that would save them by crushing the head of the devil (Genesis 3:15), conquer sin and defeat death. For thousands of years God continued to reveal that promise through His prophets. That promise was realized in full in Jesus Christ, who was the will and Word of God in the flesh. Because Christ paid for sins and rose from the dead to redeem us and restore our relationship with God, we have the love and Fatherly care of God and His Spirit within us by faith in Jesus.
There is no need for luck. We have someone far more reliable and perfectly faithful. We have the promise and presence of God Himself. The hope that we have is not in superstition, but in the promises of God who rose Jesus from the dead and who tells us in Romans 8:28 that, “for those who love God all things work together for good.”