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:
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
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