The True Fantasy

Hello, you're listening to Second City Sermons,

a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown,

Harrisburg. This epiphany in Lent, we're back

in the Gospels, specifically the Gospel of Mark.

We are seeing the revelation of God in Jesus.

Mark is showing us the true King becomes a servant

for us. He says right at the heart, the Son of

Man came not to be served, but to serve and to

give his life as a ransom for many. And Mark

is nearly always asking his audience, what do

you make of that? So, what do you make of this

good news? We'd love to meet you and we hope

you'll consider coming and joining with us each

Sunday morning at 10 a .m. in the heart of Midtown

Harrisburg. You can find us online at secondcitychurch

.org and on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

We hope you enjoy this sermon. God bless. Let's

pray. Lord, we bless you this morning. We are

so glad to be in your house and to hear again

this central story to our faith that the tomb

is empty. Jesus, you conquered death, you conquered

sin, you conquered Satan by rising from the from

the dead. The very curse that is upon humanity

on this earth because of sin, you have reversed

because of righteousness. The righteous one dying

for the unrighteous. God, I pray their hearts

to be lifted up in astonishment and amazement

that maybe even like these women we might have

a degree of holy fear and awe, wonder at what

God has done. God bless us now today as we contemplate

this story again, story of all stories, the risen

Christ in whose name we pray. Amen. All right

Some of you may know that there has been some

controversy Around the new Snow White movie and

you are all thinking right now. Why is he starting

a Easter sermon like that? Well, I hope it I

hope it'll eventually make sense. We'll see It's

true. There's some controversy around it. It

had a budget of 218 million and it only Made

42 million its opening weekend sad It's almost

certainly going to be a financial flop. Rotten

tomatoes, for those of you who are abreast of

these things, currently it's at 39%. The IMBD

rating is 1 .6 out of 10. That's actually less

than half of rotten tomatoes. And Google has

it at 6%. Poor casting choices. These are some

of the reasons politically motivated CGI characters

harmful racial stereotypes It's too simplistic.

It's too predictable. It lacks suspense. It lacked

emotional depth It seems as though the controversy

was mostly around people saying it's just so

bad But not like a bad evil way, you know just

bad Poorly done and I don't know. I didn't see

it. I don't I don't know Okay. We did though,

a couple weeks ago we were down in Richmond,

Virginia. We were down there for my niece's bridal

shower and we were hanging out with some friends

and one of our friends went to go see it with

her daughter and they loved it. And she had a

theory about why it's gotten such bad reviews.

I thought it was kind of interesting. So I'm

always thinking like, what can I share in a sermon?

I put this one away. And she said, you know,

I don't know if it's so bad or if we just live

in a world where you can review anything and

we are so polarized that we take any and every

opportunity, just lambast anything we do not

like or doesn't fit into our narrative or whatever

you have you. And so she was saying, you know,

I'm not sure that it's so much of a reflection

of something so poorly done as rather, it's the

poor state of people. That in fact, we are bad.

To be honest. don't know By the way, there's

controversy because it's so bad And I don't know

if that has to do with how bad the movie is or

just how bad we are but it's bad Some of you

know that the original Snow White and the seven

dwarves Came out in the year 1937 it actually

came out in December right before Christmas they

knew all the way back when when to release certain

things. Three months prior to that, another great,

maybe the greatest fantasy was released. The

book The Hobbit by J .R .R. Tolkien came out

just months apart, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

and the Hobbit. We know that Snow White was released

actually in Great Britain in 1938 and Tolkien

went to go see it. and he went to go see it with

his good buddy, C .S. Lewis, and went to go see

Snow White together when it was released in England.

I would have loved to have just watched them

watch it. I'll just say this, they didn't really

like it. Lewis wrote this, dwarves ought to be

ugly, of course, but not that way. He said of

Snow White, they had bloated, drunken, low -comedy

faces. I like those little guys. Sounds a little

bit like a Reddit review. But keep in mind, these

were the authorities of fantasy. Tolkien, he

used words like loathing, vulgarity, corruption,

disgust, nausea to describe Snow White. Now,

writing about Walt Disney particularly, he said

that he was hopelessly corrupted. I'm going to

get it together here. He wrote, though in most

of the pictures proceeding from his studios,

There are admirable or charming passages. The

effect of them, of all of them to me is disgusting.

Some of them have given me nausea. Oh dear me,

I got to get together now. One of the articles

that I read, this wasn't a quote, but one of

the articles that I read said that Lewis expressed

surprise, surprise that anything, anything human

could be so bad. And so good. But here's what's

interesting is that their response actually had

to do with the way the bad was portrayed and

the way the good was portrayed. Meaning that

the bad wasn't quite bad enough. And the good

was sort of sloppy good. You know, slapstick

humor of the dwarves, sing -songiness, names

like Dobie. Not honestly good, makeup good. Not

honestly bad, kind of makeup bad. They said that

Disney's took the real bad out of the story.

Tolkien, you may know, wrote an essay. I'd encourage

you to read it in 1947. It's called On Fairy

Stories. And in that, he actually says, the association

of children and fairy stories is an accident

of our domestic history. He says, in some ways,

what's happened is they've domesticized fantasy

and fairy stories, dumbing it down in a way,

making the bad not so bad and the good not so

honestly good. You probably know that Snow White

came from one of the great Stories of the Brothers

Grimm written in 18 or published at least in

1812 And I think you ought to hear actually just

how bad the bad is in the original Snow White

You may remember that That's the stepmother the

witch figure there, you know, she tells the huntsman

bring back the heart in a box That's not the

original. In fact, this is what she says to the

huntsman originally Take Snow White out to the

woods I never want to see her again kill her

and as proof that she is dead bring her lungs

and her liver back to me Yeah, yeah, that's bad

And this is how she dies at the end she doesn't

just fall because of some rocks this is the quote

from the original Then they put a pair of iron

shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth

with tongs and placed before her. She was forced

to step into the red hot shoes and dance until

she fell down dead. You're not laughing now,

are you? That's bad. It's evil. The good, their

critique was, was not good enough. It's not bad

enough. Dopeyness. In the way, they would say

the good was sort of a sappy and a shallow kind

of good. Said you have the Shire against Mordor,

right? It's the word. If Gandalf against Sauron.

I want to suggest to you this warning rather

quickly, but I want to suggest to you that part

of the controversy around Christianity is actually

How much it says the bad is really bad, and how

much it says the good is actually deeply, unbelievably

good. It's a true fantasy. The bad's really bad.

We've been in the Gospel of Mark together as

a church this year, and so I thought, okay, our

resurrection text this morning is gonna be from

Mark, so that's what we have before us. And one

of the things I want you to see is actually this

dynamic of how Mark seeks to really focus in

on on the bad for us, and then how he shows us

the good. And a lot of this, this happens a lot

when we're reading Mark, is he gives these little

details, and often it's in those details that

we actually are able to see well the text. We

see some of these details of the badness first.

First details that we see in our text this morning

is actually, interestingly, sort of the Jewish

observance of the Sabbath, but in the context

of Roman subservience, the Jewish subservience

to the Roman rule. So verse 42, if you look down

there, it says, when evening came, since it was

the day of preparation, that's the day before

Sabbath. It sort of highlights for you, okay,

it's this Jewish context that's taking place,

and then it jumps in. Joseph of Amherstia respected

member of council who was also himself looking

for the kingdom of God. Okay, you have this man

He's living in this Jewish world. He's expectant

for what God would do but says he took courage

Meaning that even though he had a good amount

of power. He's a member of the council. He certainly

had Financial means like you wouldn't believe

he's able to carve this great tomb out of the

rock. He has to take courage because why? He

has to go and ask just simply for a body from

the Roman ruler Roman ruler for a dead body.

What these details are telling us is that the

bad is actually really bad. Why? Because here's

what's going on. The Jewish story was telling

us and told the Jews that really the whole hope

of the world was on this, that God was going

to act through the Jewish story, Jewish people,

for the blessing of the whole world. I mean,

if you go back to the beginning, right? We look

at this this fall actually. If you go back to

Genesis and you see just how awful things are.

You know the original sin of the fathers goes

to the next chapter where a brother kills his

brother and uncles are vying and his power struggles

then things are so bad that the flood happens

and they're so bad they're rebelling against

God the towers is of Babel's bill and then says

I've got to do something about just how bad this

is Abraham I'm gonna bless you and through your

offspring all the nations of the world are going

to be blessed That's the story of Israel that

they are living too. And what happens right here

is we are reminded yet once again that simply

enough, can I just bury this body of this Jewish

rabbi, this teacher, and you know what? You can't

just do that because you are under the heavy

thumb of Rome. It's bad. The hope of the world

seems totally gone. It is bad. But Really, actually,

it's the next details that give us a greater

sense. And that's because the next details, especially

in light of just hearing about Pilate, tells

that an innocent man is dead. So, you know, I

just mentioned that Joseph of Amithea, he goes

to Pilate. But here's an interesting thing. If

you keep Pilate in mind, what you might remember

is that in the Gospel of John and in the Gospel

of Luke, Pilate actually tells us twice in John

and once in Luke, this man's done nothing wrong.

That's the pilot. We're supposed to be remembering

that. And actually in the Gospel of Matthew,

what we learn if we read the Gospel of Matthew,

what we find is that his wife even has this dream

and she says, don't deal with this man. He's

innocent. Don't engage with him. So the pilot

story should be going on in our minds. We're

thinking, here's an innocent man. An innocent

man that is put to death. But actually what's

really kind of wild is that Mark seems to just

beat into us this fact that he is dead. He's

dead. Listen to this again. If you want to look

down, you can follow along with me, but you can

also just listen to it. This is verse 44 and

verse 45. Pilate, again, keep all that in mind,

mentioned twice, the end of 33 and 44, trying

to help us keep in mind Pilate's position on

all this. Pilate was surprised to hear that he

should have already died. And summoning the centurion,

he asked him whether he was already dead. And

when he learned from the centurion that he was

dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. Now, of

course, there's a way to write that that doesn't

emphasize this, right? He was surprised that

he should have already died and summoning the

centurion, he asked him, was it true? And when

he learned from the centurion that it was true,

what's Mark doing for us? Mark is saying, this

innocent man died. There is no question. Pilate

adopted it. He says, wait, go check it out. He

checks it out. He's like, yes, you have to confirm

it. And Mark again and again is telling us, this

man died. Don't think it's, you know. Figma of

your imagination just wishful thinking some you

know story that's kind of made up The bad is

bad in the Bible the innocent man the only innocent

man goes to death in the Bible We continue on

what we find is The death actually of hopes and

dreams for the kingdom of God, it's kind of interesting

So if we continue on, sorry, in verse 45 and

46, again, remember 43 and 44, you have Pilate

mentioned at the end of 43 and then at the end

of 44 to give context for those. Well, at the

end of 45 and the beginning of 46, Joseph again

is mentioned. He's actually mentioned three times

in the story of Arimathea. So verse 45, you know,

when he learned from the centurion that he was

dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph

brought a linen shroud and taken with him. Listen

to this, all the details. He bottled it in shroud,

taking him down, wrapping him in linen shroud.

He laid him in a tomb. Joseph is doing all these

things. He buys the thing, he takes him down,

he wraps him, he lays him. And what do we know

about Joseph? Well, what we'd first heard about

him, he was a respected member of the council

who was looking for the kingdom of God. Which

is to say, That for this man in this little detail

that we're given is that in this story the hopes

are dashed We actually have another great story

in Luke 24 that we're gonna see next week But

the hopes are dashed your greatest desire got

to act in the world, right? It was looking for

the kingdom of God Gone What I'm saying to you

is that this story that we have in the Bible

is not glossing over things It's not dumbing

down the tragedy, the evil, the badness of it

all. It's sort of putting it right in our face.

This is bad. As if to continue on, what we have

here is next is we have the Mary's. Some of you

might have noticed in verse 47, it says Mary

the mother of Joses. The second part of that

says Mary the mother of James. To be honest,

we don't know if those are the same people or

not. They're the Marys. There's quite a few Marys

in the story. If you're really interested, I

shouldn't get into it. The mother in 47, that

word is not necessarily there. It's kind of debated.

I'm not going to get into that. Here's the point

with the Marys. They prepare these embalming

spices. Why are they doing this? Why would they

do this? But because the body is going to stink.

There's no question in their mind that their

great loved one, who they spent all these years

with, Mary, her son, who heard the angel Gabriel

long ago, say what God was going to do in and

through her, preparing spices, because her son's

body is going to rot. There is no glossing over

the evil, the bad, the fact of death, the effect

of sin in this world. It doesn't happen in this

story. Of course, there's also a theological

description that's taking place in all of this.

The evil in the world and the sin of the world

are so bad that the innocent must die. That the

God man, right, proclaimed to Mary long ago,

must actually be put inside a tomb. Must expire

Your sin demands the very death of God That's

how bad it is so wrong it is And I would guess

that today there may be some of you who Don't

think much of the Christian story. Maybe maybe

you don't buy it Just just allow this this little

bit to challenge you today That at least Christianity

doesn't gloss over the ugly Because you all know

I know how bad this world is So fraught with

not just not just wars between countries but

wars in our hearts wars in our families We know

how ugly the world is Christianity doesn't pass

over that as though it's nothing Now, here is

the very death of God, how wrong the world really

is. But it is also in this context that the good

shines. That the good is not a good of slapstick

humor and dopey dwarves and all that. If this

story tells us how bad the bad is, it is also

so deeply concerned with how much we know the

good. You know, your Bibles seem to have the

turning point in chapter 16, verse 1. That doesn't

seem to fit as well, I don't think. I think it

should start in verse 2, okay? So let me just

read to you just the beginning of verse 2. Actually,

yeah, let me read to you most of verse 2. And

very early, on the first day of the week, when

the sun had risen, Did you get that just just

those few little things very early? first day

of the week When the Sun had risen it is almost

as though you're saying mark himself is saying

wait a sec You thought You thought the bad is

just gonna gonna make it You thought that it

was just gonna be always as bad as you have always

experienced Something is about to happen I mean,

just these details that Mark gives us almost

want us to go, wait, what's going on? Something

new is breaking in. The embalming spices aren't

needed. And then consider the next deal, the

stone. It's almost as though Mark again is saying,

wait, something is happening. Never expected.

It's the impossible. Verse three and four. And

they were saying to one another, You know the

sort of things you say when you walk along the

side of the road Who will roll away the stone

for the tomb? In a sense of how grand it was

and how secure it was Verse four and looking

up they saw the stone had been rolled back and

Mark wants you to see just how good it is and

how wild it is and how unexpected Expected it

is it was very large What a simple statement.

You would have never guessed it. You'd have never

guessed it. It was very large. Something new

is breaking in. The impossible is happening.

The good is beyond what we would imagine. And

then there's the young man. Verse five, entering

the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the

right side dressed in a white robe and they were

alarmed. which I just thought is so wild. It's

almost like the good is so good that he's peaceful

about it. And he said to them, do not be alarmed.

You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.

He has risen. He's not here. See the place where

they laid him. The bat, he's crucified. See the

place where they laid him But the good and oh

how good how unexpectedly good he's risen The

tears that were flowing Right the world that

we live in where it just seems incessant the

wrong that happens The evil Empire crushing the

one ever to have lived he's risen he's not here

He's gone ahead you golly Of course trembling

and astonishment and fear grab a hold of them

right of course Here is true fantasy But the

best the best fantasy the bad is not merely a

little bad It's awful horrendous and the good

is oh so beautiful You know the controversy around

us and the resurrection the controversy still

Is that the cross declares to us that things

are even worse than you thought actually I mean

the God man had to become Human and actually

die an innocent death in the worst way possible

on the cross God Himself, that's what sin demanded

the torture and the affliction of God in the

flesh. It's way, I mean this is the offense of

the cross. You are way worse than you think.

Part of its controversy. Of course part of its

controversy is also, also is that the empty tomb

and the cross declare to you how wild, how amazing,

how unimaginably great God's grace is. unbelievable

the stone was large the boy was just sitting

there he is not here he's risen you see if Jesus

didn't die well then maybe God is just shrugging

off evil maybe if he doesn't come he's not thinking

it's much of a big deal you know Maybe we can

have a tame evil stepmother who just puts the

heart in the box. You don't have to face actually

what happened. If Jesus did die, then we can't

do that. We can't shrug things off. You're not

invited. You shouldn't dismiss the trolls. and

the wurakai, right? Or just simply turn a blind

eye to the power hungry, the money grabbers,

people that have hurt you, ways you've hurt others,

the sin that has been inflicted on you and the

sin that you've done to others. You are not invited

to turn a blind eye to that, because God has

not done so. People is evil. We don't have to

dismiss what has happened to us. Jesus had to

die and he did die, then it is God's own declaration

of just how bad things are, how awful the world

really is. But if that's true, as Christianity

says it is, the fact that Jesus rose from the

dead, the fact that he says he is risen, he's

not here, well that changes things too. Because

that actually means that even into this world,

In this world where the Empire is over the people

of God with their heavy thumb Ultimately saying

everything will be alright With you always I

Have control of it all as we saying death cannot

hold me down I've overcome I Will take you safely

to myself if God in Christ raised from the dead.

If He rose from the dead, that is true. That

in the bleakest moments of your life, God is

holding you, saying it will be all right. If

I gave my life for you, if I conquered Satan

and death for you, you are always secure in my

love. Whatever pain cripples you, whatever fear

overcomes you, whatever experience seems to cloud

your judgment. Lord holds you in his hands All

of the bad is truly so bad But God says the good

is beyond your imagination Let me try to wrap

this up So at least some of you now know that

there's controversy around Snow White You all

do now. I've declared it to you. It's true. You

can look it up My guess is that some of you knew

that. Some of you might also know that in Tolkien's

great trilogy, Frodo, the great ring bearer,

leaves with the fellowship. Actually, let me

just ask this. What day do they leave from Rivendell?

December 25th. Interesting. Do you know what

day Frodo is at Mount Doom and destroys the ring?

It's March 25th. That's interesting. Now let

me put those things together for you. March 25th

has been the day for most of the church's history

that the church has celebrated what's called

the Feast of the Annunciation. The Feast of the

Annunciation is the day that we remember actually

Gabriel coming and meeting there with Mary. the

inception of Christ. And in the ancient world,

and actually it's been believed for as long as

we know, well in the ancient world a great prophet

would die actually on the day of his conception.

And so the church for a long, long time celebrated,

it was March 25th. By the way, March 25th was

also the day that for a long time, The new year

began, because the new year began at the day

of Christ's death. Anyway, for many years, people

believed that March 25th was the day of that

first Good Friday long ago. You see, what I'm

saying is that, and you might know this actually,

I hope you, gosh, this is kind of getting to

the nerdy Lewis Tolkien kind of stuff. We've

already gone there, so let's keep going. So if

you know that Tolkien really didn't like actually

he gave Lewis a really hard time for the Narnia

books Because they were too explicit about Who

Jesus is by the way, he's the lion And and he

didn't like how explicitly was he thought fantasy

should be hiding things more But you know what

what Tolkien did is he had not the ring bearer

Who was taking this ring of power, right? which

is the ultimate sign of corruption and how it

corrupt others hearts. But he actually has the

cross bearer carrying this sign of power and

corruption and sin and making his way not up

Mount Doom, but up Mount Calvary. And what does

he do is he crushes it. He destroys it there

on the cross. And how do we know he does that?

Because of the empty tomb. That's it That is

the great fantasy told you that Lewis knew that

I hope you know that and what it makes a great

great story But it tells the truth The true account

of the way the world is and You have to wrestle

with that. Does your accounting of the world?

Taking the consideration how truly awful things

are And yet how deeply beautiful and hopeful

things are. Friends, that is what we have in

Easter. That is what we have in the cross. God's

saying the bad is beyond what you could have

thought. And the good is beyond what you would

ever imagine. That is why we celebrate Easter.

Let me pray for us. Lord God, Heaven. God we

bless you that you are the one who took on Satan's

sin and death perfectly on the cross that you

destroyed the powers of this world That would

weigh us down. It would cause such global catastrophe

Take our hearts and twist them They would cause

the likes of sour men to grab and to destroy

goodness of the world and all the rest Lord how

evil evil is and Yet Lord we are so delighted

that you take that on that you don't brush it

aside You go to the place where evil is most

pronounced a Roman cross and you die there the

innocent one for those who are guilty and You

conquer Satan's sin and death in the resurrection

or we bless you for this this morning. We praise

you. We worship you we adored you and God, I

pray that you lift our hearts to this reality.

God, whether we have been following you for decades

upon decades or whether this morning we're here

and we don't know why we're here and we're not

even sure we like being here, but God, I pray

that you might move in our hearts a little bit

to say, does my account of the world even make

sense of these things? Challenge us with the

cross and the empty tomb this morning. Do this

great work and let's look. We bless you. We say

hallelujah. Praise be to God for the great work

you have done in whose name we pray. Amen. Thank

you for listening to Second City Sermons podcast.

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