Black Swan Events ∙

Black Swan Events ∙

[The Lord Jesus Christ] was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord. – Romans 1:4

1 Peter 1:3-5

 3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation,

 4 and we have a priceless inheritance – an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.

 5 And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

What is a Black Swan Event? Black Swan Events are rare and outliers from the norm. They come as a surprise and are often accompanied by serious, major consequences. The term is derived from the outdated belief that all swans were white.  All swans that Europeans ever saw were white and only white. They presumed that black swans did not exist. This erroneous belief was proven false when Dutch explorer Willem de Vlaming went to Australia. On January 10, 1697, he discovered black swans. They were alive and well down under.

In 2007, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a former Wall Street trader, wrote a book called the Black Swan Theory. He explained that Black Swan Events are metaphors. They describe incidents that are unexpected and unknowable. They are hard-to-predict and rare.  Black Swan Events are outside the realm of normal probabilities and expectations. They come as a surprise and seem random. People are not able to anticipate them. In the world of investments, a Black Swan Event often results in a decisively negative impact on the markets.  Curiously, after-the-fact explanations often make these anomalies appear explainable and predictable.

Black Swan Events are not limited to financial markets. Unanticipated developments occur in diverse disciplines: history, science, medicine, finance, technology, etc. They are catalysts for major paradigm shifts and the transformation of international, global politics.

In the first two decades of the 21st century, have seen the rise of several billionaires with companies and conglomerates that dwarf famous extremely wealthy people who preceded them.

Several extremely wealthy Americans rose to the top during the 19th and 20th centuries. Their names are well-known Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, C.P Morgan, etc.

However, their wealth seems like a mere trifle when compared to “robber barons” of the 21st century: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin to name but a few. Their companies are household names: Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX, Facebook, Brookshire Hathaway, Oracle, etc.

The second decade of the 21st century saw the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant deaths of millions. This was followed by the development of vaccines. Next came the schism between those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated. Suddenly there were two classes of people: the vaxxed and the unvaxed. Each side claims that they have science on their side.

In the midst of all of this, streaming videos of police brutality atrocities went viral. The outrage that followed produced a massive paradigm shift. The founding and rise of organizations such as BLM. The collective perturbation created by these events was so great, that that it produced a gigantic shift in American public opinion and culture. Our country will never be the same. Concurrently, major national and international transformation was afoot. There was never-ending hostility and warfare in the Middle East, the Arab Spring, and the Russian invasions of Crimea and Ukraine.

The omniscient Father God foreknew and predicted numerous Black Swan Events in the Scriptures. Biblical prophecy is not fiction, the work of human imagination, or wishful thinking. Rather, biblical prophecy is unique. It reveals future history before it occurs. Only the living God can do that. And that is exactly what the Father God did.

Isaiah 48:3-5

 3 Long ago I told you what was going to happen. Then suddenly I took action, and all my predictions came true.

 4 For I know how stubborn and obstinate you are. Your necks are as unbending as iron. Your heads are as hard as bronze.

 5 That is why I told you what would happen; I told you beforehand what I was going to do. Then you could never say, “My idols did it. My wooden image and metal god commanded it to happen!”

REFLECT & PRAY

Black Swans are alive and well throughout the Scriptures. They demonstrate the reality of the living God. The Father has repeatedly and miraculously intervened in the time-space continuum. The things that occurred were improbable, and in many cases impossible. Today we call them miracles.

Father thank You for predicting some of the greatest, most improbable, and impossible events of human history: the virgin birth, the incarnation, the death of the son of God as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

INSIGHT

The Scriptures are replete with Black Swans. They have had a massive influence on the history of the human race. Just two are considered below.

The first was a remarkable birth, a virgin birth. That in and of itself was not only highly improbable, but it was also impossible apart from divine intervention. But on top of that, that child was the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world. By all accounts, He lived a regular, “normal” life right up until the time that He was baptized by John the Baptist. John recognized and proclaimed Him as, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

As a result of His birth, an entirely new calendar system was created. The timeline of human history was split. New terms were introduced: B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini – “In the year of our Lord”).

Death by crucifixion was a fairly common form of execution carried out by the Romans. What was unpredictable, improbable, if not impossible was the historical fact of the post-crucifixion resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The resurrection was the greatest, most significant Black Swan Event in human history. Through His death and resurrection, He brought salvation and redemption to the human race. Eternal life was now available to anyone who accepts Him as their Savior and Lord.

“He died upon a cross of wood, yet made the hill on which it stood.”

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 3-12-2

© Dr. H 2022