Good morning church family,
About 85% of all the silent films produced in the early twentieth century are now lost to us. Due to the highly flammable and unstable nitrate film that was used when shooting these movies, many of the reels suffered spontaneous combustion and were destroyed. Films that didn’t go up in flames were often stored haphazardly and scattered pell-mell with no consideration given to their preservation. Many were simply thrown in the trash. In most cases, all that remains now of these films are the posters created to promote them to the public. While these large prints are works of art in their own right and wonderful to view; beside supplying us with the title of the movie and the names of the actors and actresses that would have been on the marquee, we really learn very little about the actual stories.
The purpose of a movie poster isn’t to tell the tale but to get patrons to buy tickets to the show. Posters plastered to the wall beside the box office are filled with images of romantic embraces, daredevil rescues, menacing figures lurking in shadows, and flint-jawed cowboys standing hand-on-holster in the middle of dusty streets. Folks read the titles, look for stars in the listings, and weigh the rosy reviews. If any of the highly stylized images on the posters capture their imaginations or any headliners entice them to want to see more, they’ll plunk down the unholy sum necessary to get past the velvet ropes.
But when they stroll out of the theater a couple hours later, what will they think when they glance again at the poster that drew them in? Having sat through the telling of the tale, will they feel the glossy sheet was honest in its pitch and faithful in its presentation? Or will they shake their heads at what they see now as a shameless come-on? Either way, it’s unlikely that the patron will hold the poster accountable. Americans live their entire lives as the targets of advertisers and are savvy to the craft and hyperbole of the sales pitch. No one puts full faith in any commercial; no matter the claim or its spokesman. To put it bluntly, we’re well accustomed to being lied to.
As Christians, the story that we’re working so hard to get folks to hear and to see is so much more important than any of the romances, thrillers, comedies, or shoot-em-ups that Hollywood regularly churns out. The Gospel is the story that writes every single person in the audience into its plot. And what that hearer does with the story when he finds himself center-stage with the spotlight on him, has everything to do with whether that Gospel story, at least for him, has a happy or a sad ending. For all that are created in God’s image are cast in His play and all must deliver a line – either confessing faith in the hero, Jesus, or denying Him.
I believe that God calls every Christian to be a movie poster of sorts and that He then plasters us up on the walls of our workplaces, schools, apartment complexes, coffee shops, downtowns, uptowns, and all-arounds. Our new lives of love and righteousness point passersby to the good news of Jesus’s love and salvation. Folks see it on our faces, hear it in our speech, and feel it in our outstretched hand. They understand it by how we spend our time and money, locate it by where we take our stands, and solve its mysteries by the “why” we give to every question. And in this way, we’re dissimilar to the movie posters we see beside the box office. We’re not selling anything. We are, instead, the best evidence of the power of the story itself. We’re Heaven’s down payment on the treasure that is His to give at the return of Christ. We are posters that bear witness to the story’s power!
“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.” (2Corinthians 2:14-17)
If all the Bibles in the world spontaneously combusted today and a virus erased all the digital copies stored on computers and in the cloud, the Gospel would still go forth. The world would still have the posters and because of the power of Christ in all of us, the posters would tell the whole tale. So, let’s not be peddlers but proclaimers!
We’re looking forward to getting together tomorrow morning to worship – we the unworthy declaring our praise to the only One who is worthy. We the redeemed placing our lives in the hands of the One who saw the value in us and bought us with a price. We the lost taking the hand of the One who led us out of death’s valley. What a wonderful opportunity! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!
- Pastor Tate
