All Is Lost

Your favorite stories, the best narratives have what many writers call an “All is Lost Moment.”

In the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey loses thousands of dollars and is at risk of going to jail—through no fault of his own.

In Star Wars, Darth Vader kills Obi Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker’s friend and mentor.

In the classic, Pride and Prejudice, Jane learns that her sister Lydia and run away with Wickham—and that her family—along with her hopes for a future with Mr. Darcy—are ruined forever.

There’s a whole movie named “All Is Lost” that came out ten years ago starring Robert Redford.  IMDB says, “After a collision with a shipping container at sea, a resourceful sailor finds himself, despite all efforts to the contrary, staring his mortality in the face.”  

He’s a lone man battling the ocean.  The All is Lost moment happens when his life raft catches fire and he sinks into the water.  Ben Frahm described like this:  “Without a boat.  Without hope of rescue.  Our Man gives up. He lets himself sink towards the bottom of the ocean.  Staring at the still burning lifeboat on the water’s surface.  We are convinced Our Man will die…”

To make matters worse, “All is Lost Moments” are followed by a Dark Night of the Soul.

Blake Snyder, who wrote a lot about storytelling, described the Dark Night of the Soul as the point in a story when the hero reaches rock bottom.  Has a crisis of faith, a loss of hope, or a total sense of failure.  It is usually accompanied by a profound emotional and psychological battle or a struggle that forces the hero to confront his own limitations, anxieties, flaws, and failings.  It makes people face their innermost fears.”

It really is a moment when dreams shatter.

The life of Jesus Christ was both history and narrative, a true story that also had it’s “All is Lost”  We’re so familiar with the Gospels, that we pass over it without letting ourselves feel what the writers are trying to tell us. 

The Apostle Matthew said “ As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him.   Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.”

If you listen carefully, you can hear the stone rolling, and the echoing thud as it dropped into place, sealing the tomb.

So…

What Does Matthew Want Us to Feel Here?  The shattering of dreams.  That all is lost,  and the night is dark.  He wants us to feel what the disciples and Christ’s loved ones must felt.  The echo of a door slamming shut, reverberating through their minds.  There’s No Way Out.  Shock.  Loss.  Grief.  We feel smothered.  All Is Lost.

Why Do We Call this Holy Week?  Because it is a week of Sacred Sorrow.   A Week that Ends in Darkness.  It tells us to shed our tears for Christ has Died.  See Your Savior on the Cross.  See him in the tomb.  See the stone rolling in to block your view forever. Then feel the Silence of the Night.  Notice the Silence of Saturday.  

Feel the Calm Before the Storm…

What Storm?  

What Do You Mean by Storm?

The Storm that will be Sunday.  A storm that sweeps through to usher in a New World.

The old passes and the new has come, all in one day.

We call it Easter.