"Bruced!"

Robert the Bruce didn’t have a monopoly on spider meditation.

In common with countless other people, I hate the things.  I’m not really sure why, though; maybe it’s because they’re small and scurry so quickly to and fro.  Mice I can just about accept.  Once, before I moved to my present home, I watched one dashing back and forth on the kitchen worktops, before removing him for hygiene’s sake.  I recall thinking he was quite an attractive little character.  By contrast, spiders – with apologies to any arachnophile readers – are just plain ugly.

One day whilst standing in the bath, I noticed a tiny spider making a steady track across the ceiling.  As I watched it, I pondered.  Allowing for my many excursions, I reckoned that the spider probably spent more time in the flat than I did.  Would that rank him superior in occupancy, give him some authority over me?  Then I thought, if it wasn’t for me paying the rent, setting the heating and so on, he wouldn’t have such a pleasant time of it.

I compared the spider’s situation vis-à-vis me to mine vis-à-vis God.  I thought of God’s provision for us in this world that we laughingly call ‘ours’.  How different, for example, would our lives be if the sun were only a few degrees warmer or cooler?  This is far easier to imagine these days, with all the publicity about global warming, which could soon become a real threat to our accepted way of life.  I decided that this was a good illustration of the dependence of the small on the beneficence of the large, both in my flat and in the wider cosmos.

Then the spider made his big mistake, dropping on an almost invisible strand of web (just as I imagine the Bruce’s friend must have done in that cave all those centuries ago).  This one didn’t struggle to climb back up, however.  He just hung there, menacingly, at the end of the line: only a few inches in front of my face.  Calmly, I passed a hand above him, caught the web, and deftly dropped him down the plughole.  Goodbye, spider; hello, peace of mind.

Only … now I hate spiders even more for, after a praiseworthy lesson in divine provision, in his demise this little creature had reminded me of the horrible cruelty of my humanity, and how far we fall short of God’s standards: how much we deserve the fullness of His wrath.  The sixth Commandment says, “Thou shalt not kill.” (Ex. 20:13, KJV).  It is a teaching about the very sanctity of life, over and above the usual interpretation of ‘murder’.

Isaiah tells us, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.” (Is. 42:3).  It’s a clear indication that God cares for the sick, the poor and the defenceless.  These verses refer to a ‘suffering servant’, and are generally accepted as a prophecy about Jesus.  They teach us characteristics of gentleness, encouragement, justice and truth.   Matthew quoted them immediately after Jesus had healed a man’s shrivelled hand in defiance of the Pharisees, whose view was that this shouldn’t have been done on the Sabbath (Mt. 12:18-21).

This is about far greater things than sparing the life of a spider.  Isaiah’s prophecy goes on to call all to serve God by many different sorts of kindness, to shine the light of His love on all around us (vv. 6-7).  But the death of that spider is a symbol of the way that we treat this obligation so lightly as we go about our lives of comparative luxury ... often ignoring it completely!  What chance of acquittal would we stand in the face of God’s judgment, if it were not for Jesus’ sacrifice to cancel out our sin?