Advent Thought 13 and Number 13

Was it because of the thirteenth and last god in the Viking pantheon? Maybe the number of times the Israelites are said to have murmured against God? That the Code of Hammurabi reportedly omitted a 13th law? Or perhaps the number of people at the last supper? There are all sorts of reasons why 13 is deemed unlucky, although I reckon the last one is unfair on the women who almost certainly  prepared the food.
Whatever, our first house after marriage was number 11 and the next door neighbours were numbers 9 and 15. Bryants the builders would not sell a number 13 in the 1970s. Don't know if they do today. Frankly I wouldn't have been bothered if we'd bought number 13 on Friday 13th and stapled a black cat and a sweep to the door.

In my imagination
There is no complication

Superstitions are determinative. You read your own bad luck back into the circumstances. You tend not to have easy power of recall over the many times you spilt the salt and nobody died.

We can even treat our prayers as if they were a superstition. 'I prayed about it and things still went wrong,' I heard someone say only this week.

So why not take a moment today to drift into your own Advent destiny, in control of the response to the circumstances, which may be lucky or unlucky. And trusting in a God who has a bigger picture. That ladder you need to walk under? Do it, rather than step into the road and risk being knocked down.

Trust me when I say, as a Christian minister, that any day you aren't crucified is your lucky day.