QUARANTINE BLOG # 357

March 22, 2021

Meet the Flintstones.  They’re the modern stone age family.  From the town of Bedrock, they're a page right out of history.  Were you singing along by the time you got to the second sentence?  Did you finished the song when I stopped?

In 1957, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera formed Hanna-Barbera Productions and left MGM where they had created the Tom and Jerry Cartoons. They introduced Ruff and Ready, then Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw to television, but still did not have a mega hit to rival their own Tom and Jerry.

At the same time, from another producer, The Honeymooners was a smash hit.  Ralph Kramden was a bus driver whose madcap schemes to get rich quick often dismayed his wife Alice. In an adjacent apartment lived Ralph’s best fiend Ed Norton, a sewer worker, and his wife Trixie, Alice’s best friend.

Hanna-Barbera made The Flintstones in the same style as The Honeymooners. Fred’s personality was based on Ralph Kramden, and Wilma Flintstone was a direct imitation of Alice Kramden. Best friends Barney and Betty Rubble were added later.  Initially the characters were modeled as Hillbillies, Ancient Romans, Pilgrims, and then Native American Indians before they settled on the Stone Age family.

The Flintstones was the first American animated show to depict two people of the opposite sex sleeping together in one bed, the first to last longer than two seasons,  the first to show a pregnancy (when Wilma became pregnant), and the first birth (Pebbles Flintstone).

Yabba dabba doo!

👉  Did you know that Mercury astronauts each carried a Swiss Army knife on their orbital missions?  And it was not supplied in case they needed to fight aliens from outer space.  If a capsule hatch would not open, the solid, one-piece knife was designed to be able to break the seal.  Or if the mission was forced down on land, it became a survival tool.   Inside the handle, was space to house small survival items like matches, fishhooks and line. A tiny screwdriver to unscrew the handle and gain access to the items inside was attached to the thong at the end of the knife handle.  The Randall Knife Company, which made the 7 original knives, still makes one today for sale to the public.  Price, $600.

👉  When someone makes an effort that is almost but not quite successful, why do we say “Close, but no cigar?”  In the late 19th century carnival games were targeted to adults and not children, so the winners would get a cigar as a prize. If the person was close to winning but did not succeed they’d say it was “close but no cigar.”

👉  If you start the day in a bad temper, why do we say “You got up on the wrong side of the bed?”  Throughout history the left side of basically anything was considered to be “the evil side,” so getting up on the left side was also considered a sign of bad luck.  To ward off the bad luck, home owners would push the left sides of the beds to the corner, so their guests would have no other option than to get up on the right side.

👉  If you become nervous in any darkened environment, are reluctant to go out at night, experience increased heart rate, sweating, or shaking, when forced to spend time in the dark, or if you need to sleep with a night light you may be experiencing “nyctophobia,” or fear of the dark.  Other fears are: octophobia – fear of the figure 8, papyrophobia – fear of paper, philematophobia – fear of kissing, scolionophobia – fear of school, and venustraphobia – fear of beautiful women, and many more.  I list those because their names sound funny, but if you suffer from any fear, it is not a laughing matter.  It is good to remember what the Apostle Paul told Timothy, his son in the faith, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (1 Timothy 1:7).

👉  Here are a couple of signs for the times:

👉  Just before we close, a panel for you art lovers (also Star Trek fans):

👉  Today’s sermon from the Crawfordville Pulpit is “Pilgrim, Prisoner, Sufferer, Voyager.”

👉  New and Improved!

The TV commercials shout, “New and Improved!”  The labeling on the box proclaims, “New and Improved!”  The skeptic says, “The only thing that is new and improved is the commercial or the box!”

We wonder, what is this new and improved going to cost us?  Will the new really be any different from the old?  If I try the new, will I recognize it as new?  And my favorite question: “Why did they have to change it, since I was happy with it the way it was?”

As a computer user, I started out with an operating system called MS-DOS (Microsoft Disc Operating System).  There was a lot to learn, but I was happy with it.  Then there was Windows 1.0, and 2.0, and 3.0, but I still used DOS.  I liked it the way it was, but you know engineers.  As Dr. Leonard McCoy said, “They love to change things.”  When I was confronted with Windows 3.1 for Work Groups, I gave in.  And I was happy with it.  But Microsoft wasn’t.  From then until today there have been 8 new and improved versions (all new, not all improved).

That’s may be a long way to go to get to Jeremiah and today’s Lenten text, but in Chapter 31, he proclaimed to the people of his time that the Lord would make a new covenant with them.  “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (31:31).  And this new covenant would really be improved.  

The old covenant required following a set of rules.  The new covenant offers a standing promise of forgiveness.  The old covenant’s relief was temporary.  The new covenant’s relief is eternal.  In the old covenant they were given the law.  In the new covenant we are given the freedom to live in the grace of God.

A new covenant was given because the Israelites did not keep the first one.  As a consequence of their unfaithfulness they once again became captives to a foreign nation.  What Jeremiah shows them is a new and improved way to live.  This new and improved covenant of grace is about forgiveness. “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).

These words of Jeremiah looked forward to the covenant that Jesus made with his disciples: “And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” (Matthew 26:27-28).

“And I will remember their sin no more.”

New.  And improved.

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