Friday, August 30, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
What are we going to watch tonight?
The cross of Christ must not be emptied of its meaning.
We watch a lot of films on Turner Classic Movies, produced mostly from the 1930s through the 1960s. Since the first successful movie The Great Train Robbery in 1903, thousands of miles of film have filled our theaters, our eyes, our brains and our memories.
And on other nights for two years now, we’ve been watching a series of 32 extra-biblical stories called The Chosen. We know the stories. But we like millions of others are caught up anyway in the suspense, as Jesus begins his ministry, continues through the first years, and will (I imagine) be eventually led to the cross.
The cross of Christ must not be emptied of its meaning.
Watching movies on the TV screen isn’t like sitting in a theater, but 55 diagonal inches does fill up our living room with wonderful stories and the acting of Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, William Powell and Myrna Loy.
Jesus too. We love watching actor Jonathan Roumie be Jesus, walking from place to place, holding broken, pleading faces in his hands, healing eyes and ears, and exorcising demons from the children of God.
Where is the wise one? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?
Let’s add another TV habit. Because now baseball, football and the Paralympics are capturing my eye-time too.
I have a simple Rule of Life that works for me, that brings my life nearer my God to thee, even when the TV takes over so much time: READ, WRITE, LISTEN, PRAY. Every day. I want to add WALK to that list, and I will when the temps in Texas eventually moderate.
WATCH has never been part of my Rule of Life.
But I am grateful to be enjoying the joys of vicariously walking with Jesus in The Chosen, the memories and satisfaction that flow from the old movies on TCM, and the football and baseball games that capture so many fall days and nights. All of that is reflected on that TV in the corner, sometimes even including the old RKO tele-transmitter beeping through the night sky, which I fell in love with first 50 years ago, watching Sherlock Holmes movies after church on Sundays.
Erich Fromm wondered if Sundays were not becoming “days of fun, consumption and running away from oneself.” We love our church and our fellowship after church, but I certainly recognize the truth of Fromm’s observation, not just for others, but often for me.
TV plays a big role in that running away, I guess. But even so, Fromm’s description doesn’t dig deep or stick like glue. My conscience isn’t clear, but it also isn’t agonizing over what I do and what I watch.
The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom.
God is alive. Magic is afoot. God will not be mocked. And God will never stop loving me and asking me to love him in all I do, all I say, all I listen to and all I watch.
The plan of the Lord stands forever, and the design of his heart lasts through all generations.
 (1 Corinthians 1, Psalm 33, Luke 21, Matthew 25)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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