April Fool

April 1

Today is April Fools’ Day. Today is the day pranksters can perpetrate their mischief to their hearts’ content—and no one can be offended! It’s all in the spirit of fun. It’s all in keeping with the tradition begun in ancient Persia—which is today called Iran.

The Persians played jokes on each other on the 13th day of their New Year (Norouz), which falls on April 1. This day, celebrated as far back as 536 BC is called Sizdah Bedar and is the oldest prank-tradition in the world still alive today.

The ramifications of the notion of being foolish are expanded in the Bible, which does not have a tradition of indulging pranks. The Bible is utterly serious when it states emphatically, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” Psalm 14:1. There can be no more disastrous consequence in an individual’s life than that of reaching such a conclusion!

The person who knows the planets rotate on their axes, that gravity holds us fast to the earth, yet believes life exists apart from an intelligent mind that conceived the wonder of all the eye can see and everything the mind can imagine has measured and assessed all he surveys with a very limited scope. His foolish denial of the Almighty will relegate him to a Christless eternity if he does not change his mind and heart.