JUNE/JULY 2007

Dear Mt. Olive family and friends,

We rented a movie the other night. It was a very good movie. Unlike most movies, however, the hero dies.

People don’t know how to deal with that. I mean, we’ve become so conditioned to expect that at the end of every good movie the hero will rise and triumph, that we don’t know what to do when the hero dies. Is the whole scene just a dream where, at the very end, we’ll be brought back to reality and the movie’s hero is again alive and well?

In this particular movie, under the DVD’s “Special Features,” there is – you guessed it – an alternate ending. For those who just can’t handle the solemn death of the hero, there’s a happy ending!

I think I can understand why many of us would usually prefer that our movies have happy endings. It’s because we consider movies to be a little vacation from reality. We understand that danger, disaster, disease, and death are the tragic consequence of sin and the heartbreaking reality of living in a sinful world, but for an hour and a half we want a movie that will transport us to a place where truth and justice prevail and the good guys win.

There are others, I suppose, who see movies as an extension of their idea of realism, and therefore are thrilled by all the blood and guts and violence and vulgar talk and foul language. For such viewers, the more people who die, the better the movie.

Some folks, I suspect, use movies as some sort of escape mechanism, hoping against hope that real life will be like “in the movies” where, in less than two hours, all the problems are solved and all the good guys live happily ever after.

Sorting fact from fiction, truth from falsehood, and reality from fabrication, becomes fuzzy on the big screen. So you can have it both ways. Those who can stomach the death of the hero can accept the original ending. Those who want the hero to live can switch to the alternate ending.

I’m reminded of a scene – not from the movies but from the Bible, – where the Hero both dies and lives, without the benefit of “special features” or “alternate endings”! And, amazingly, without any special effects or filming tricks! Even more amazingly, the whole scene is absolute, true reality without any suggestion of fiction or fabrication!

The scene begins on a cross where our Hero dies. We wish it were not so. We cry. We didn’t want it to end this way. But as quickly as that Friday scene ends, the next scene transports us to a Happy Sunday where our Hero is fully alive. His death is real – just as the forgiveness in which we now live is real, - and His living again is real – just as in reality we too will live forever in heaven.

We don’t have to go to the movies to view this incredible scene. Yes, it has blood, it has death, it has shocking suspense. There is a Hero who dies - and who lives – but there’s no need for an alternate ending! And there’s justice, too. He died for our sins and in our place. He rose again and declares His victory our victory! What an ending!

Because of this real-life scene from our real-life Savior, we don’t have to click on “special features” and search for the “alternate ending”. However, because Jesus both died and came back to life again, all people are invited to enjoy an “alternate ending” to their own lives. This alternate ending transports us from time into eternity, from death into life, and from earth into heaven. But unlike “in the movies,” this transport is reality-based.

In other words, it’s true!

Pastor Carl Henkel