What's in the Cake?

We had a couple of significant birthdays at church this Sunday.  Yolanda and Royce both celebrated being over 90.  Of course, we had cake.  It was delicious -- lemony with marzipan and lots of icing.

On Good Friday, we heard about another cake with an unusual filling.  Our worship service rested on "The Seven Last Words of Christ,"  by Joseph Haydn.  It is recognized as one of Haydn's most profound works.  Even the composer rated it superior to his oratorios.

DieMahler String Quartet

Yet when it came to payment, the priest who commissioned it, paid Haydn with a cake!  The priest was not as parsimonious as first impressions suggest.  When Hayden cut into the cake, he found it was filled with gold coins!

   

   So, what's in our cake?  Here's a children's story from my favourite anonymous contributor.

Today we're going to mix up a cake.  (The preacher put sugar, oil, chocolate in a bowl, but he didn't measure or even break open the egg.)

What do you think of our cake so far?  Not much!  We have the right ingredients, but they are not put together properly.

Most of us have many things in life:  food, friends, home, school, clothing, family . . . But it is not enough to have them, you must use them right, just like baking a cake.

   Sad but true, many folk have many wonderful things from God, but they use them all wrong.  They have toys, but treat them roughly and break them; family, but don't treat them with respect; friends, but don't really do what is best for them.

It's not so important what you may or may not have, it is that you use what you have in a right way.

(Back to the muck in the mixing bowl) We have all the right ingredients, but we haven't made a good cake.  So you and I can have many good things in life, but we can ruin them if we don't put them together properly.

Let us ask God to help us use all His wonderful gifts in a good way.

Whoever made the birthday cake we enjoyed on Sunday, used all the ingredients in the right way.  Thank you to them, and to my contributor for making "cake" a metaphor for Christian living.