Easter, Entropy and the third banana

Notes for a talk given at the Family Communion at St Mary’s Easton on Easter Sunday 2018 – the slides shown follow:

Easter Assembly

What is this – a green banana

What is this – a ripe banana

What would happen to this banana if we just left it outside?

Something would eat it

it would rot….

so generally a banana, any fruit, any plant goes from being green to going rotten…

its the same with human beings…we go from being green and young

like all of you….to being old and ripe… like me

and sadly eventually we die

what is the saddest of all is when someone who is young dies

its very unfair for those who are left behind

but young or old everyone will die eventually 

indeed everything in the universe runs down

everything moves from order to disorder: I am not a scientist

but I understand this is called ‘entropy’

its the second law of thermodynamics

Unless something else intervene all things eventually cease to function

they rot….

 

in the church – can you find this person

What’s the difference?  You can be as rude as you like!

Everyone and everything gets old

who is this? Jesus as a baby

Jesus was a real person

Lived in Palestine in the first century

Who knows about the Romans

Who is learning Latin?

they knew about killing people!

They were experts at killing people

Jesus was crucified by the Romans in Jerusalem in about 30 AD

but Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead;

he came back from the dead, that’s what we celebrate at Easter

and Christians believe what he told us 

that if we trust in Jesus, even though we die,

we will come back from the dead also, one day

So if you imagine that this banana is a person, goes from being green to being brown

a person goes from being young to being old

but the resurrection means that we then go

to being young again…..there is a third banana!

that is what resurrection does

that’s what happened to Jesus 

but it only happens to humans, not bananas or anything else!

but did it actually happen to Jesus?

because if it didn’t then Christianity is of no value

We are all like St Thomas – we want to touch and feel and see to believe

How do we find out?

In all history, we look at the evidence

we look at the witness statements, like a jury in a court

Each of you are the jury, you look at the evidence

and you decide

and you form a view on what happened

its the most important decision you will ever take

because Jesus tells us that if we believe him then we too will come back to life as well, like Jesus

In the natural world….there is entropy

But at Easter Christians believe….that something supernatural happened

What does it mean?

If Jesus comes back from the dead

Then same for us and those we love

Easter means:

Nothing bad has to last forever

who is this? Sam Gamgee Lord of the Rings

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! 

But then I thought I was dead myself. 

Is everything sad going to come untrue? 

who is this?

in the Final Battle of the Narnia series

The children who are the heroes of the stories of Narnia are sadly killed in a train crash

and Aslan meets them again in Narnia and says to them

“The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

Are you looking forward to the holidays?

Well Christians believe that if you trust Jesus

That when you die it will be one long holiday

The third banana

The resurrection of Jesus

Means that we can come back

Easter means that nothing bad need last for ever