The origins of the lemon-filled jelly donut

The lemon-filled jelly donut originated in 1565 when the John III, Duke of Hasbury in England wanted to pull a joke on his long time friend, James the Greater (a whole other story) Count of Edenbury. You see, the cherry-filled jelly donut was a favorite of James the Greater. It was said that he had at least one of these favored donuts at every meal. If his cook staff failed to produce these delights at every meal, he would actually fall into a fit of rage turning the kitchen upside down. It was a real addiction.

This is where John III comes in. He knew that this was his comrades' downfall. Unfortunately, the Duke was also a well known prankster. He was commonly known among the peasants as the Lord Duke of Flatulence. He was tickled to have such an honorable title. So, John III had the idea to replace James' cherry-filled donuts with lemon-filled donuts. He was recorded saying, "I could think of little worse than to expect the sweet taste of cherry but find the tartness of a lemon." He quickly ordered a batch of his puckering delights for his fiendish plan and had one of his errand boys deliver the package instead of the regular delivery of cherry.

Needless to say the Count was outraged at first, but after some time found it somewhat humorous. In retaliation, he took a goat bladder filled with air and nearly sealed shut and put it on John's chair. This is where we get today's whoopee-cushion! Back to the donut. This was not the end of this prank. The people caught on and it became a common prank to slip one lemon-filled jelly donut in every batch of donuts they sold and is a tradition carried on today even by the largest of donut vendors, Dunkin' Donuts. See, it is nearly impossible to tell cherry from cream to lemon filled. All you will see is a dark hole on the one side of a donut and you pray you aren't the one who accidentally grabs the jelly donut.

Ok. So, that whole story was a load of malarkey. But I am truly convinced the lemon-filled jelly donut has been created as a prank. Who could possibly want to knowingly bite into that thing? What brings this up? Yes. I fell prey to this dirty little prank this morning at work. I looked as hard as I could to see what was contained in the secret compartment of the donut. All prayers and guesses failed as I was suprised by the taste of that nasty lemon jelly.

At risk of sounding irreverant, sin is like a lemon-filled jelly donut. It looks good. Oh, man! Does it look good! Your mouth salivates as it sees that heavenly, puffed pastry sitting there covered by sweet powdered sugar. You almost think twice about eating it because you know you'll look like ghost by the time you are finished. You wonder how the sugar multiplied with every bite because you don't remember that much being on the blasted donut. But the battle over the flesh ends as you pick up that Dunkin' Donut-made-piece-of-manah and place it on your excited taste buds. You bite down expecting to taste sugar cream or cherry. But much to your dismay, all you taste is lemon. You were duped. Duped into believing something so wretched and horrible could look so good! Proverbs 16:25 "There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death." Proverbs 5:3-5 "For the lips of an adulteress drip honey And smoother than oil is her speech; But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, Her steps take hold of Sheol."

So often we are, in one sense, duped into believing that something as vile as sin is good. That's in once sense. In another, we are at blame. See, we never needed to push the limits. Who ever said that you had to have the donut anyway? You could've had a bagel. But, you decided that you needed to have that cherry filled donut at risk of getting a lemon filled donut. See, we try to push the envelope too often. We want to see how far we can go without going too far. Unfortunately, by the time we realize we need to stop, we've already gone too far and we're already half way down the hill... or the lemon donut is half way down our throats. 2 Timothy 2:22 "Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart."