On Easter Sunday we showed this clip just before the sermon. When the song started, you could hear little voices all over the room start to sing along. The sound took my breath away. It was our kids. On Christmas & Easter we have all of our children, even the babies, join us in worship; that way no one misses out. They knew the song & couldn\u2019t help themselves. After a couple lines the singing died away (I think the parents started shushing them). If I had it to do all over again, I\u2019d invite them to sing along.<\/em><\/p>\n This sermon was delivered on Easter Sunday, 2014 at Redemption Church in Olathe, KS. I have to acknowledge Rob Bell\u2019s \u201cBegin at the Beginning,\u201d talk, from which I took the central thesis & some of his good language. I stole the \u201cUp there down here\u201d language from John Ortberg. If you are a pastor, feel free to copy and steal anything here.<\/em><\/p>\n _________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n 2014.04.20 \u2013 Easter 01<\/strong> How many of you have seen this movie, Frozen?<\/em> How many of you LOVE, this movie Frozen.<\/em> Did you hear all the little voices singing when the song started? That was amazing. I think the movie is interesting in part because all of the tension in the story revolves around the relationship between these 2 sisters.<\/p>\n Elsa<\/strong> (older sister) has this power: she can create ice and snow; which is amazing, but it can be a bit dangerous sometimes. Once when she was a little girl she seriously injured her little sister Anna while they were playing together. But, it\u2019s Disney right? So magic trolls fix the little sister right up, and the parents decide to isolate Elsa from her little sister until she can learn how to control her gift. And to make it easier, the trolls remove part of Anna\u2019s memories. After than, Anna remembers how much fun they had together & how close they were. But she doesn\u2019t remember anything about her sister\u2019s magical ability. Elsa, remembers everything. She knows that she has this amazing little sister that she loves, how much fun they used to have. But she\u2019s terribly afraid she\u2019ll hurt her little sister. So she cuts herself off completely.<\/p>\n Anna<\/strong>\u00a0(the younger sister), starts the story a few chapters in. She remembers playing w\/her big sister, but has no memory of the reason there\u2019s a problem. She\u2019s hurt by this sister she loves, and doesn\u2019t understand why Elsa won\u2019t play with her, or talk to her, and never comes out of her room.<\/p>\n Elsa tells the story from the beginning, w\/this gift that seems wonderful, but it\u2019s dangerous & she can\u2019t control it. Anna begins the story in the middle, w\/a sister who used to be fun, but now she\u2019s completely withdrawn. Since they begin in such different places, they both tell very different stories about their lives\u2026 so they end up on opposite sides of a door, both wishing they could be together: the older thinking it\u2019s an act of love<\/em>, the younger one thinking it\u2019s an act of rejection<\/em>. The only difference where they begin to tell the story\u2026<\/p>\n I once heard a pastor say, \u201cWhere and how you begin the story, and where and how you end the story, shapes and determines what story you\u2019re telling\u2026\u201d Parents know this routine: one child runs upstairs crying, \u201cBrother slapped me in the arm.\u201d You yell for brother, who appears in tears carrying the Lego ship he spent 4 hrs building, now in 100 pieces. Anyone familiar with this? Where you begin the story determines what kind of story you\u2019re telling.<\/p>\n So when it comes to the big, big story; the cosmic story of the world & where it came from and our lives, and what they mean\u2026 Where and how you begin, and where and how you end that story will determine what kind of story your life is telling.<\/p>\n In the movie Frozen<\/em>, the Anna tells a story about an older sister who\u2019s cold\u2013an ice queen\u2013it felt like her sister didn\u2019t love her anymore. But she wasn\u2019t beginning from the beginning of the story. The older sister tells a very different story. She thinks she is acting out of love. What\u2019s strange is that it\u2019s the same reality. They are living the same reality. But they begin the story in very different places. And where and how you begin the story will determine what kind of story you\u2019re telling.<\/p>\n Now, Endings have a similar impact on the story as well. In the Frozen<\/em> story (btw, let me just give a spoiler alert: If you\u2019ve never seen Frozen<\/em> before, I\u2019m totally going to ruin this movie for you. But it\u2019s already grossed over $650 million \u2013 so if you never see it, I think Disney will still be okay), as the story builds\u2026 you begin to see that the older sister has become consumed w\/the fear that she\u2019ll end up hurting the people close to her. So she isolates herself; she runs off & builds this superman-style fortress of solitude\u2026 it\u2019s this ice castle for a snow queen. She\u2019s so afraid her life will end badly, that she cuts herself off. This has an impact not only on her younger sister, but the whole land, which is now in this perpetual winter.<\/p>\n Anna has a very different ending in mind, especially after their parents die. She believes that the story can have a happy ending (together).\u00a0So she refuses to give up on it; she trudges off through the snow to find her sister. They both have these different ideas of how the story will end. Elsa thinks it\u2019s a tragic story of isolation & loneliness & fear. Anna thinks it is a love story. And how you END the story will determine what kind of story you are telling\u2026<\/p>\n You guys remember the movie Charlie Wilson\u2019s War<\/em>? In it, Phillip Seymour Hoffman\u2019s character tells this story:<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse, and everybody in the village says, \u201cHow wonderful. The boy got a horse.\u201d And the Zen master says, \u201cWe\u2019ll see.\u201d Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, \u201cHow terrible.\u201d And the Zen master says, \u201cWe\u2019ll see.\u201d Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight\u2026 except the boy can\u2019t cause his legs all messed up. And everybody in the village says, \u201cHow wonderful.\u201d And the Zen master says\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What does he say? We\u2019ll see\u2026 The point is that where and how you end that story will determine what kind of story it is you are actually telling.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve made the connection already, but it bears making it explicit: this is how the Christian story works as well. Where and how you begin the story of God, and where and how you end the story of God, will shape and determine what kind of story you\u2019re telling. Today we tell the story of how the end of the story takes am unexpected twist in the life of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n In the scripture we just read, Mary looks straight at Jesus and doesn\u2019t recognize him. She is convinced she already knows the end of that story. Mary has no imagination for how there could be a different ending of the story. Dead people don\u2019t get up and walk around. And Messiah\u2019s don\u2019t die. One theologian has said that saying \u201ccrucified Messiah\u201d was like saying \u201cboiled ice.\u201d That\u2019s what Easter is all about: giving us a new imagination for how the story can end, in the hopes that this can change everything about the story we tell with our own lives right here and now.<\/p>\n This story BEGINS clear back in Gen. 1, with a God who is distinct from creation, which was a strange thing to believe in a culture where pretty much everyone worshipped the creation or some part of it. But the Hebrew God is distinct from creation. And this God creates things, that can create more things: trees that can make more trees; animals that can make more animals. And one creature God has a special relationship with (humans). God gives them responsibility over the creation. Their job is to take care of it, and steward it. \u201cBe fruitful & multiply; fill the earth & subdue it, have dominion over it. Till the earth & keep it. Make it grow & flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n Everywhere God looks; God wants to see things flourishing. And this diverse creation exists in a kind of order. God is distinct from creation, but intimately involved. Creation is dynamic, it\u2019s growing & constantly developing. Humans are meant to order creation in certain ways: Sabbath rest, honoring fathers and mothers, not killing, lying\u2026 The order is meant to allow everything to flourish. Creation is \u201cteeming\u201d with life because it is rightly ordered.<\/p>\n But if the people try to be God, it won\u2019t work. And if the people start to worship creation it won\u2019t work. There\u2019s an order \u2013 a harmony to it all.<\/p>\n The Jewish people had a word for this order\/harmony: shalom<\/em> <\/strong>(peace) \u2013 which is not like inner peace, or world peace. It means everything in its proper place functioning as it should, that\u2019s shalom. And God blesses all of this and calls it good. This is how the story of God & us begins in Genesis 1 and 2.<\/p>\n Then comes Chapter 3 of Genesis, where shalom is disrupted, and harmony is replaced with an ugly dissonance. And all of the human\u2019s relationships go sideways, and the people begin to: hide from God; they feel shame about their nakedness; they blame each other; and when they work the earth works against them, and the work becomes toil. The order that everything needs in order to flourish is disrupted. For us, this disrupts the way we relate to God, ourselves, other people, and the created order.<\/p>\n The order, and harmony, and shalom is disrupted. The Hebrew people have a name for this as well, they call this disruption sin.<\/strong><\/em> To the Hebrew mind, sin isn\u2019t just cheating on your taxes, or lying to your parents. Sin is just anything that disrupts shalom & ruins the harmony of creation. That\u2019s what happens in Gen. 3.<\/p>\n Now some people have a tendency to start the story of God from Gen. 3 (with sin), instead of Gen. 1-2 (with creation, order, flourishing, & shalom). And, if you begin the story in Gen. 3, then the story you tell when you talk about God becomes about the removal of sin. But, if you begin the story in Gen. 1, then the story you tell is about the restoration of shalom\u2026 which includes dealing with sin, it\u2019s just so much bigger than that.<\/p>\n
\n John 20 \u2013 Frozen and the Resurrection<\/strong><\/p>\n
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