Loading...I’m going to tell you something about myself that you probably don’t know. It is actually a little embarrassing. I’ve talked so much about being a child of the 60’s — peace and love. So you probably would not expect that my favorite genre of movie is disaster movies. All kinds of disaster. I think it started way back with the Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno. Then came Twister, The Day after Tomorrow, Deep Impact, 2012, but my all-time favorite movie is Independence Day. I love that movie, especially the President’s speech. I can hear it now———.
Michael Duncan reads:
And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!
Gives me chills. Every time I watch it, I think I’d vote for him to be President. Isn’t it a beautiful idea that someday the world would speak in one voice about anything. But that is a sermon for another day. I just wanted to hear that speech again. Thanks Micheal, you did a great job. What got me thinking about disaster movies when I began working on this sermon is the fact that the plots of disaster movies are all very similar. There is always one person, probably the star of the movie, who knows the truth, knows that there is a major disaster coming. This person, usually an unknown scientist, knows what’s going to happen and why and what needs to be done if the world is going to survive. The first part of the movie is spent trying to convince the powers-that-be that the world is in danger. Everyone around, friends, family, decision makers all think this truth knower is insane, lost his or her mind. After a while, when things keep getting worse, the people in charge will turn to this truth knower and follow the advice. And of course, because this is Hollywood, the world is saved.
Well, you may be asking, “What does any of this have to do with today’s gospel?” The passage we read today from Mark started with “The crowd came together again, so that Jesus and his disciples could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul” Do you get it now? Jesus is the truth knower in a disaster story. Jesus has been turning the world upside down with his teaching, saying things that went against what the Jewish people had been hearing from their leaders. Jesus has been warning them of the devil’s work and how it will lead to their doom if they don’t listen to what he is saying. Most people think he is insane, out of his mind. They think that the devil is in him or that he is working with the devil. But we know that Jesus is telling the people what they need to hear, the truth, like in our disaster movies. He is the one who knows that the world is in grave danger. He knows that Satan is at work leading the people away from God. And he knows how to save the world, but no one is listening, especially the leaders. They don’t believe him; they don’t understand the danger they are in. Even his family thinks he has lost his mind. They have come to take him back home. They think he is the one who is in danger. They see how the leaders are threatened by him and his teaching and want to protect him. The religious leaders are trying to follow the Jewish laws as they understand them. They have to keep Jesus quiet. It would undermine their authority if people start following Jesus’ teachings. As in a disaster movie the people don’t see the danger, they don’t realize the control that Satan has over them. They did not realize they were being held captive to sin and death by the devil.
The truth is, Jesus had come to save the world and to defeat the powers of Satan. The first words He says in the Gospel if Mark are “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near: repent and believe in the good news. Repent and believe that is what he was telling them to do. From the beginning Jesus set out to help people believe in Him as their Messiah. Everything that He said and did was to demonstrate this truth. His love, his teaching, his healing, his casting out of demons? All of this was to show that he is their Savior, the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus was the only one at first who knew the truth. Remember even his family didn’t believe in him. Jesus could not save his family when they thought he was only their son or brother but later when they began to believe in him as their Messiah then they became members of his true family.
We too are invited to be members of his family. He said Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
The world is still in grave danger. We may think it has gone out of its mind, But Jesus is still here to save the world, and to save us. All we have to do is to follow Jesus, repent and believe in the good news.
Jesus said, “No one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
The strong man is Satan. Satan used to rule the world, but Jesus came to tie him up. And on the cross, that’s what he did. His death on the cross showed us God’s true love and then his resurrection brought an end to Satan’s reign on earth.
Satan is still here, there is still evil in the world, but Satan is tied up and is now helpless.
In the Gospel of John we read, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
And in Revelation we read, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
We can battle the evil in our world without fear, because the devil himself is tied up. There is still evil in this world, and sin and hatred and injustice everywhere we look. All too much of it. But we can face it confidently, knowing the one behind all of this evil is now tied up and helpless. Now that the strong man is bound, we can do the work of God, We can feed the hungry, care for the sick, and proclaim the good news. We can strive for justice and peace throughout the earth. We can do everything that Jesus asks us to do, commands us to do, because Jesus has already done the hard part. He has bound the strong man. We can now plunder the strong man’s house, and spread God’s love to all.
So President Whitmore, in my favorite movie, was right. We do not have to go quietly into the night, we are no longer afraid of the dark, Jesus is our light. We will not vanish without a fight because the devil is no longer a threat to us. Jesus saw to that, we are surviving because we have repented and believe in the good news that Jesus brought to us. We do celebrate Independence Day, independence from evil and dependence on Jesus every day.
