Easter Eggs Part I

If you've ever watched a director's commentary of a Pixar movie, they will point out to you the places where the filmmakers referenced other Pixar movies by sticking in objects in the backgrounds of scenes called "Easter Eggs." There are some fans who go through and play the movie in slow motion so that they can catch every one of these, even though the reward is nothing more than the satisfaction of collecting a relatively meaningless piece of trivia, because these allusions to other movies do nothing to further the plot of the one you are actually watching. A speaker named Rick James came to the Campus Crusade meeting at Cal the other day, and he illuminated for us some of the Easter Eggs hidden in the Gospels. Except these Easter Eggs, references either to the Old Testament or to a previous passage in the Gospel, are much more satisfying to discover, because, unlike the Pixar references, the claims the Gospel writers make through these allusions is the claim that is central to the entire Bible: Jesus is not just another man, but He is the Son of God.

I was so proud of myself this week reading Matthew, because I found one on my own! As soon as I heard Rick James's message, I started looking up words in my Bible's concordance at the back to see if I would be led to an Old Testament description of the Messiah. And one phrase that struck me as a potential Easter Egg was this description of Jesus right before he begins giving the Sermon on the Mount: "When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying..." (Matthew 5:1-2). In this description, it is totally unnecessary to say that Jesus opened His mouth; if He says anything, of course his mouth would be open. That led me to believe that the phrase "opened His mouth" has some kind of other significance. I looked up the word "mouth" in the concordance, but I did not find anything helpful (my Bible's concordance is very incomplete). However, then my eyes glanced back only one chapter and I found the treasure. When Satan tempts Jesus in the wilderness by telling him to turn stones into bread, Jesus replies, "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4). Man lives on the words that come out of God's mouth. In chapter 5, by highlighting Jesus' mouth, Matthew is trying to say, "Look! Here are words coming out of God's mouth right now! Listen to them, because they are what will give you life."

Worlds Apart

I found this picture on the Photo of the Day blog, as part of a series of underwater landscapes. This one in particular struck me because it splits the frame almost in half between the aquatic realm and a glimpse of the terrestrial one above. Is this not how we live our lives? We see the eternal realm as if through a filmy, light-distorting surface. At rare moments, we stick our heads through, but we quickly find our anatomy was not made to exist in undiluted air, and we are forced back into a fluid normality, where we sit and look and long for the time when we will be given lungs instead of gills. If The Little Mermaid were less about an angsty teenage girl rebelling against her father, it would be a perfect parable for the life of a follower of Jesus.

He is Risen!

He is risen indeed.

This week has been an exciting one for me. Last Sunday, pastor Peter gave a sermon on The One Thing. And he said how The One Thing in life is very simple: share the Gospel. Doing this is so important, because it's the only reason Jesus left us on the earth. And that means, in a very real sense, sharing the Gospel is who we are. In the same way that an Olympic caliber figure skater is him- or her-self when he or she is competing or practicing in the rink, we are who we are when we are sharing the Gospel.

After I heard that sermon, my reaction was: I want to know who I am. It is so easy to forget, and it makes sense that God has given us this way to remember. So, on Wednesday, I went with Campus Crusade at Berkeley to Bear Share, which is something they do every week. They go to campus at 1:00 and go around the main plaza of the school initiating conversations with students. I went with a friend from Bible study, and we got to talk to a freshman girl who turned out to already be a Christian, but she was struggling this year with doubts, because Berkeley does nothing if not barrage the faith of anyone who comes there, and she had not found the time to get involved with a Christian community on campus. But in the end, she said, "Maybe the fact that you guys came and talked to me is a sign that I should make God more of a priority." It was so great, I felt encouraged because of that for the entire week!

Then, on Saturday, I was meeting with my friend Catherine at Starbucks, whom I've been discipling, and we were talking about God. And randomly, two other girls from the youth group came in and ordered drinks. They hadn't been coming to church for a couple months now, but they sat down with us, and I was able to share Peter's sermon with them about The One Thing. In the middle of talking with them, the barista at the counter said, "That was really well said." Apparently my voice kind of carries when I'm talking. Which is embarrassing, but embarrassing for a good cause!

Anyway, I felt this entire week that I am a part of God's work in the world, and it's all culminated with Easter, which is the magical day when God suspended the rules of nature: "When an innocent victim dies in a traitor's place, the table will crack and death itself will work backwards!"

Psalm of the Kitchen

Let the window open wide to welcome
The sun and the love of God that
Penetrates every shadow.
Let the floor bear up our feet as they dance.
Let the earthy onion, with all its tears and ours,
Praise the Lord!

Praise rises mingling the sharpness of the garlic
With the keenness of the knives that cut it.
Praise flows shushing out of our
Very own fountain that never runs dry
Except when they're fixing the plumbing.
Praise riots out in the cackles of hot oil.
Even the tone-deaf kettle sings
And its notes are found acceptable.

All you objects in the kitchen,
Let your voices, colors, and smells
Cry out in all their magical ordinariness
So that we might join you in the chorus:
Praise the Lord!