Christy found a big canvas, so we went out in the back yard, loaded down with paint and collaborated on a homemade piece of art for the new baby... Norah mainly covered her hands in blue paint.


Trailer

Have you been “rickrolled” yet? A few weeks ago my boy Graham got rickrolled while trying to watch a trailer for the new Harry Potter movie… by the way, if you don’t know, rickrolling is the ridiculous internet phenomenon whereby you click on a link you think will show you a certain clip, but actually takes you to the 1987 music video of Rick Astley’s song, Never Gonna Give You Up. The actual Harry Potter trailer wasn’t due out for a few more days, but Graham got sucked in by some all-caps title… “Exclusive Harry Potter Trailer” or something like that… One reason this rickrolling thing has become so big is that people want to be the first to see those movie trailers. I can remember being in college when the first Star Wars prequel was about to come out… I watched that trailer a kabillion times online, so excited about R2, Yoda, lightsabers and a young Obi Wan Kenobi!

Christy and I love to get to the movies early so we can catch all the trailers… although sometimes you can tell that the funniest jokes were crammed into the previews… and sometimes the trailers are way more dramatic and way cooler than the movies they advertise! I just love sitting in a dark theater and seeing that huge preview screen wash the whole room in a sea of green. Sure, it’s fun to go into a good movie with absolutely zero knowledge of what’s going to happen, but it’s almost irresistible to watch and get a sneak peek.

I was thinking about movie trailers because of something that happened in the first chapter of Mark. It’s a pretty familiar story… you know, the one where the guy who had leprosy came up to Jesus, fell on his knees and begged to be cured? He told Jesus, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was overwhelmed with compassion for the guy and touched him. He was immediately cleansed but Jesus wasn’t finished dealing with him… Jesus looked at the now cured and very excited man and said, “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Well, you know the rest of the story… the guy totally didn’t listen to Jesus. He went all over the place telling everything that moved about what had happened to him… but what if he had listened to Jesus? Why did Jesus want him to go through the old-school priestly rulebook anyway?

Well, it turns out that the sacrifice Jesus told this guy to offer is in Leviticus 14 and it’s really very cool. If you were cured of an infections skin disease, you were supposed to take two birds, a bowl of clean water, a scarlet string and a piece of cedar wood to the priest. The priest would then tie the string around one bird, binding its wings and kill the other bird, pouring its blood into the bowl of fresh water. Then he would take the piece of cedar and the living (but bound) bird and put them down in the blood and water. Then he would sprinkle the cleansed man with the blood seven times, cut the string binding the living bird and release it. The healed man would get to see that blood-covered bird fly off into freedom.

What an awesome moment that would have been for this guy if only he had listened to Jesus! It was like a movie trailer for all Jesus would do to set us free… like a not-yet-rated sneak preview of the cross… There is blood, water and wood. One is bound, the other is free. The free one dies for the bound one. The bound one is covered in the blood of the free, its bonds are cut and it flies off into freedom. Coming soon to a hilltop near you… You know, I bet there is so much freedom out there just waiting on us to simply pay attention to Jesus… so much He wants to reveal to us, if we’d listen and just do what He says.