It Isn't Nonsense
Definition Fish Story:
An exaggerated story : a story that is so strange or surprising that it seems very unlikely to be true. He told a ridiculous fish story about a swarm of giant mosquitoes.
Well, I've got quite a Fish Story for you! A true Fish Story.
A child of an aqcaintance, a kindergartener, is given to telling tall tales. Recently, he told a story to his classmates about catching 100 catfish in his back yard, some of them with his own bare hands. When his teacher questioned him about it, he insisted it was all true.
So the teacher decided to take it up with his mother, expecting her to refute the story. Instead, the mom said it was a crazy, true thing, and even had some pictures with him holding a catfish in his hands and grinning from ear to ear.
Apparently, where they live there are two ponds on a hill just behind their property, one situated just above the other. Recently, after some extreme rainfalll, the upper pond overflowed its banks, spilling over and downhill to the second, already swollen pond, which in turn then overflowed into their back yard, turning the entire yard into a two to three inch deep mud puddle full of catfish. Okay, so mayber there weren't a hundred fish flapping about in the yard, but there were many, MANY fish there -- enough that, to a young child, would appear to be a hundred.
To the ears of the teacher, who did not with her own eyes witness the event, his story sounded like nonsense.
Surely, as the women returned from the tomb that first Easter morning, proclaiming the news of the resurrected Lord, their claims were met with incredulity -- a mere Fish Story -- baseless fantasy. As the definition goes, to the recipients of the news, it was nothing more than "an exaggerated story : a story that is so strange or surprising that it seems very unlikely to be true."
Luke 24 (NIV):
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.
9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Oh, but it WAS true! And anyone with enough curiosity, who cared to know its veracity, could check it out and see for themselves. Such was the case with Peter,
Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
In a world of skeptics, be a Peter. Run to the tomb to see for yourself!
Easter Without Good Friday
I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase, "Sunday is coming!" It has become a popular saying in the church in recent years, often associated with Easter. "It's Friday, but Sunday is coming!"
While the sentiment is appreciated, it's imperative for us to not overlook the significance of Good Friday.
To illustrate this, think of the symbolism of a cancer patient "ringing the bell" at the oncologist's office, signifying the end of a long and difficult cancer treatment journey. The celebratory act of ringing the bell wouldn't hold any significance without the challenging and painful experience of treatment; the ringing of the bell essentially proclaims that the treatment is over, done, and complete.
Easter Sunday is a core Christian belief; it signifies Jesus' resurrection, proving His divinity and victory over death (Romans 6:4; 14:9).
However, to reach Sunday, we must first acknowledge Friday. Jesus' death and burial hold their own meaning, and understanding that is crucial to fully appreciating the Easter message.
Jesus did what he needed to do - not for Himself, but rather for us. Only us. Consider this powerful prophetic scripture from the eighth century BC. Although it is indeed eloquent, it is full of significant truth.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned – every one – to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. - Isaiah 53:5-6
Pause with me and consider the descriptive words: pierced, crushed, chastised, and not to mention wounded.
As we all gather in our church homes on Good Friday to “celebrate” the piercing, let's likewise look forward to the healing, and prepare to ring the bell of salvation on Sunday morning!
A Willing Suspension of Disbelief (Or, Frankenstein's Monster Visits Starbucks)
In his book, RANDOMNESS HAPPENS FOR A REASON, the founder of Illustration Exchange discusses the limits of randomness in the creative process:
The term “willing suspension of disbelief” was coined by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817. Coleridge asked readers to set aside their skeptic glasses to allow a “willing suspension of disbelief,” so they might better engage with his fantasy-filled poems. Of course, we’ve all been captivated by the inked magic of a good page-turner or transported to unexplored dimensions by the bewitching spectacle of the silver screen.
But even as we indulge in one of these flights of fantasy, no one genuinely believes that the guy with the big 'S' on his chest is actually whooshing past skyscrapers, or that they might stumble across Dr. Frankenstein's pet project at Starbucks, sipping a pumpkin spice latte. Instead, for the sake of being taken on the journey, we willingly place our critical thinking on airplane mode, allowing the magic to wash over us.
What we are less cognizant of is that we are often called upon to suspend our disbelief when it comes to how we view the real world. For example, who has ever actually witnessed life springing forth from non-living matter? Given that such an event has never been observed—even in today’s high-tech, billion-dollar labs—it raises the question: What’s the difference between this “story” and the tale of Frankenstein’s life-imparting lightning bolt? As far as we’ve been able to determine, one is just as improbable as the other.
Yet, inexplicably, without blinking an eye, we suspend our critical faculties by accepting the audacious proposition that the diversity of life we witness today was woven by the clumsy fingers of blind, aimless chance. Secular society asks us to allow a “willing suspension of disbelief” so that we might better engage in its fantasy-filled theories about reality—and we have obliged.
... [To] keep the fantasy afloat, modern narrators distort reality on two fronts. They hyper-hyperbolize the creative potential of randomness while adamantly denying the authenticity of the design observed throughout nature. By tweaking the narrative in these two specific ways, it can be claimed that chaos and order not only work towards the same end; they are, in fact, the same thing.
With the help of a little creative storytelling, our critical capacities are disabled so that our brains are no longer capable of discerning the difference between chance and design. Instead, we gaze out at the vast complexities of the natural world and all we see is the byproduct of chaos. Chance and design have become indistinguishable.
But let's not be fooled: Chaos and complexity are not even on speaking terms. By any measure, they are as compatible as fire and ice. Rather than aiding and abetting order and design, entropy is a relentless saboteur, dismantling it with ruthless efficiency. ...
But beyond the realm of our imagination, randomness has real limits. It lacks the knowledge and the finesse to write the intricate DNA codes that distinguish every species inhabiting our blue marble, nor can it produce the fine-tuned complexity found at the molecular, cellular, or systems level of living organisms. Moreover, it fails to explain how these layers of design came to operate in perfect harmony with one another.
The story that’s told of the wonders of a Creation, molded and shaped by random processes, is as fantastic a tale as any penned by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, or anyone else for that matter. Yet, here we are, fully immersed in a fantasy world where chance is deemed more capable than God Himself. That’s because, all too often, we’ve allowed naturalistic assumptions to overshadow common sense. ...
To break this spell, we must shake off the stardust and reclaim our critical faculties. Rather than ascribing superpowers to randomness, we must recognize it for what it truly is: a rudderless, reckless, chaotic force, as incapable of producing the complexities of the human brain as a tornado is of constructing a jumbo jetliner capable of flight.
"in the beginning, God ..." (Genesis 1:1).
"For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him" (Colossians 1:16, ESV).