Despite what you might think a ‘Jesus nut’ is not a slang term for an over-enthusiastic Christian, but the name given to the main rotor retaining nut in helicopters. Probably coined by American soldiers in Vietnam, the nut in question held the rotors securely in place. If the nut failed in flight then the rotors would detach and the only option open to the soldiers on-board would be to ‘pray to Jesus’ whom they were about to meet! The term is now widely used to refer to any single component whose failure would lead to a catastrophic failure of a whole system.
Writing to a church in Colosse the Apostle Paul wrote of Jesus that ‘in him all things hold together’. Paul argued that Jesus, as the Son of God, was the one through whom, and for whom, all things were created. Like the Jesus nut the logical conclusion if Paul was right, is that the removal of Jesus from society and from our lives will lead to breakdown and eventually to catastrophic failure.
Before any pilot would take a helicopter up into the air they would make sure that the ‘Jesus nut’ was securely in place. Perhaps we would be wise to do the same.
