Black Cats, Ladders, and Broken Mirrors

I've never been overly superstitious. More skeptical than anything, as it relates to Friday the 13th. And yet, looking at the calendar and realizing today is the day makes me ask the question: Why? Why do otherwise intelligent people suddenly become afraid?

Did you know $800-900 million are lost every year because people are afraid to do business on Friday the 13th? According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, 17-21 million people suffer from a phobia of Friday the 13th. Sufferers refuse to fly, buy a house, or play the stock market on such Fridays. Fear of bad things happening also keeps some people from walking on cracks in sidewalks and under ladders, and even non-phobics fear broken mirrors: if you accidentally break a mirror at a rowdy party, the entire party might gasp in astonishment, "Seven years of bad luck!"

But where do these beliefs come from? Donald Dossey, a folklore historian and also the founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute, was interviewed by National Geographic for an article several years ago titled "Friday the 13th Superstitions Rooted in the Bible and More" by John Roach. Roach wrote, "Dossey traces the fear of the number 13—aka, triskaidekaphobia—to a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, Norse mythology's heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous god Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow." It was the day joy and gladness died. As good a reason as any for you to dislike the number 13, I suppose!

But as the title of Roach's article points out, the unlucky number 13 is also associated with the Bible. If you count all the people at the Last Supper, there were 13: Jesus and the Twelve. But scholars consider the traitorous Judas to be the thirteenth member of the party, thereby increasing the association between 13 and bad luck. And, of course, Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

But as a Christian what should my response to such superstitions be? Judas betrayed Jesus, but who's to say he wasn't number 4 of the 12? And we call the day of Jesus's crucifixion "Good Friday." So should I allow superstitions to influence my life?

Psalm 103:19 tells us that God is in charge of all things. "The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules over all." He created the heavens and the Earth and all that is in them. He created you and me. He has a purpose and a plan for each of us: "For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:11)

If we believe that is true, than why should we fear a broken mirror or a black cat? You might answer: black cats are associated with witches, and witches and the devil are real. I would agree, the Devil is real. But "greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world" (the Devil) (1 John 4:4).

Good luck or bad luck -- I don't believe in either! I believe in a sovereign God who has a plan for my life. Some bad things may happen; we live in a fallen world. But God promised, in one of my favorite passages from Scripture (Romans 8): And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. ... Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Enjoy your Friday the 13th this May! It is another day to rejoice in the great things God has done!