Panda

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Hebrews 13:8

There was a news item earlier in the week about a panda cub that died in captivity at the National Zoo in Washington, DC.  A fact about the death took me by surprise.  No, its not what you think – I understand Pandas are threatened and very difficult to propagate in captivity (or anywhere else, apparently). What surprised me was that they called the Panda a ‘bear.’  A bear?  Really?

When I took college biology 345 years ago, Pandas were classified as sloths.  We were especially told that they were not bears, and that calling them ‘Panda Bears’ was a complete misnomer. Except suddenly I discover in 2012, after all, Pandas are indeed bears.  They are not sloths.  I am crushed.

I get a little kick out of people that insist that science is the only way and the only truth that there is to be found out there.  Not that I am anti-science, I enjoy studying botany, and had I not gotten a D in high school chemistry, I’m certain I’d be a geologist by now.  But.  Science changes.  Things that were taught as scientific facts when I was young (345 years ago) are no longer facts.  The reality is that most science is basically theory that is taught as fact.  Even before I became a Christian, I used to challenge my biology teacher about his teaching theory as fact.  Oh how I would love to find him now and rag on him about the Pandas.

My point is not to downplay science, but to just point out that science, as neat and explanatory as it may seem to be, is mostly theory.  And theory changes.

Scripture says that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Jesus is something that has not changed since the beginning (big bang anyone?) of time (visit John 1:1).  You can count on Jesus being the same Savior now as when you were a child.  And he’ll be the same as we drift  into old age, 345 years from now.  The fact that the very Son of God came, lived, went to the cross and rose from the dead, was a basic summary of the belief of the early church; it remains the basic belief of the contemporary church today.  Jesus is what you  can count on every day, at any moment.

And Pandas…well, I’m not so sure.  Just bear with it.