The end of the story

As I was reading before bedtime last night, I came across a movie trailer for Deepwater Horizon, the story of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a few years back.

I thought to myself, "Self, you already know how that movie ends, why would you go see what led to it."

There are probably a few who will go because it stars Mark Wohlburg. There are probably a few who will go because they didn't pay attention to oil coming up from the Gulf's floor and doing tons of damage in Louisiana particularly.

But for those of us who saw first-hand the damage that moment and the months afterwards, who saw what that did to the fishing industry for a while, who saw what that did to families who faced that, well, it ain't Marvel's Civil War, so to speak.

But all that led me to thinking about how each year we come together to commemorate the arrest, passion, burial, raising of Jesus though indeed we know the end of the story. But there is a caveat to that, you see.

Jesus died for our sins. That I believe. How that worked out, that the shed blood of the lamb did all that, I'm not sure. I simply believe it does.

Jesus was buried because he was fully human. Because he was also fully God, the power of whom is absolutely unbelievable, he got up and walked out, leaving questions, a rolled away stone, and burial clothes.

Each year we do this, even though we know the end of the story.

Put yourself in the bodies and minds of the disciples and of the women who saw him first. Try to understand that they do not know what happened at all. I mean, at all. Nada. No comprehension. Yet, believing is seeing for Christians, even those who saw before they believed.

But about that caveat, or exception. We only think we know the end of the story. We know some of it because history has written it in ink. But Jesus still is drawing in pencil.

The end of the story hasn't been written. The end of the story is about you ... and me ... and Jesus, about what a man who died then after three days in the grave (another bit of mystery we won't go into) had sinew and bone, muscle and organs come back together to an orchestra of angels singing contemporary songs (since they are outside of time as is God the Father I imagine they knew some Chris Tomlin). 

Power rose the body. Power rests in us. That's the true end of the story, you see. When Jesus returns, that's the true end of the story. When we love those who are quite unlovable, that's the end of the story. When we give our lives for someone, figuratively or literally, that's the end of the story.

And it gets me every time.