I've learned how to laugh and I've learned how to pray
The story of Lazarus (John 11) is justifiably famous — it’s not often a dead guy walks out of his tomb several days after moving in (so to speak).
The story of the early days of the church from Acts 2 is also famous — it’s not often you hear guys spouting things in languages they’ve never learned.
Today we’re going to do a mash-up — we’re going to look at community, but we’re going to do it using Lazarus' story as our backdrop.
A couple of weeks ago, as we were leaving the church building, our pastor called me over and said, “Don’t you think that Harry Potter is essentially the same as LOTR, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones, just set in a sorcery and wizarding context?” As I stared at him blankly, he said, “Something to think about. Might make a good blog post.”
I was staring at him blankly because his question was the literary/movie equivalent of asking him, “Aren’t all religions essentially the same?” It’s not that the question is difficult, it’s that there are so many things racing through your mind it’s hard to know where to start.
I wrote this four years ago for a friend's movie site. That site is no longer, so I'm re-posting this here, for reasons I'll get into at the end.
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I watched Mary Poppins live in a sit-down movie theater upon its first release. I was a first-grader, and I was mesmerized. There were several indelible scenes for me: the pulling of the lamp out her purse, the animated penguins and the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, the floating in the air at the uncle's house, the rooftop chimney-sweep serenade of Mary, and most of all how sad I was at the end when Mary went away and left the children on their own.
Let’s have some movie fun, we haven’t done that in a while.
Go watch the video on this page. I know, it’s a year old, but I’m just now getting to it.
Watch it all the way through, full-speed, i.e. don’t pause it. As best you can, mentally keep track of what you recognize and what you don’t.
Go, don’t read any further until you’ve done that. No cheating!