Howdy Colossians 1 verses 13 and 14 God has delivered
us from the domain of darkness and transferred
us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom
we have redemption the forgiveness of sins Colossians
1 13 and 14 I love a good story Marvel movies
are totally my game All right, that is my bag.
I don't know if we're allowed to say that anymore.
Is that still popular, right? Okay, yeah, thank
you. But yeah, from Iron Man and Captain America
and all of the Hulks at the very, very beginning,
I was already hooked. It was amazing. All the
Avengers movies, well, let's not acknowledge
the second one, but all the other ones, amazing.
And I love that for years I have had a continuing
storyline. built on itself. Any wonder that I
like Doctor Who? But also trilogies, oh my goodness,
like how many years that I had to wait but Back
to the Future finally got its second and third
movies. That was my childhood right there. An
extended series. Nine years later and we finally
get to the conclusion of stranger things. Oh
my goodness I am all over that for sure that
the actors are weird, but I love the story And
you know with all of this is that it's really
when you get to invest in it and see what happens
I still remember watching how I met your mother
for the first time and wondering, where has this
been all my life? Why did I not see this before
some of my very dumb mistakes? Because stories,
they end up pulling you in because we see ourselves
in them. We see who we are and we understand
ourselves better. I may be okay telling stories
in a sermon because I've prepped for it, but
I wish I were better at telling them off the
cuff. One of the things that I find fascinating
about entering the story though, I mean, when
you really get into it, when you focus long enough
on any one character, as long as you're looking
at them long enough, something in you begins
to root for them. Even the worst ones. Even the
ones that you would never trust to water your
plants. And that's saying something from the
guy with the black thumb. You know, you spend
enough time with any character, and your heart
starts whispering, come on, maybe this is the
moment that they can turn it around. No matter
how flawed, how broken, how wildly unqualified
that they are to be any sort of hero in the story,
once you pay attention, you start wanting redemption
for them. And that's how we see this man named
Dismas. What a name right? I think his parents
didn't like him It sounds either like a precious
metal or someone who definitely owes you money
I mean one or the other and he's never gonna
pay you back. You know, he's never gonna pay
you back But he's not really a great character.
He's just not if you were choosing teams You
wouldn't pick him You would hope you could just
pretend you didn't even see him in the crowd.
If you were casting a movie, he would probably
be thug number three, the one who gets knocked
out before the opening credits even finish rolling.
Whatever shady things he's done in his life,
they're not the sort of things you brag about
at Thanksgiving dinner, and that's even with
your Uncle Jim. And yet, the longer we start
watching the thug, the criminal, paying attention
to him, Something in us can't help but hope for
him to make something of himself. Even though
his story is headed toward disaster, even though
nothing good seems likely to come of him, even
though he's corrupt, compromised, and honestly
undeserving, something in us keeps whispering,
yeah, but maybe, maybe there's still a chance.
Maybe grace will find him. Because when you enter
a story deeply enough, Redemption stops being
a plot twist and starts being a longing inside
of the audience. The audience is hoping for the
redemption story. And if we're honest, we want
redemption, but not just for the criminal. We
want it for ourselves as well, because there's
a little part of us that gets the criminal. It's
not really about wanting to be in the kingdom
of God. expecting forgiveness to be in our own
dark world. We want it on our terms. We want
it to redeem us without us needing to change
anything. I'd love some redemption here. Just
don't expect any change. Colossians 1, 15 through
16. Jesus is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation, for by him all
things were created. All things were created
through him and for him. And maybe that's the
strange twist of all this. We don't ever actually
want the perfect hero. Let's just be honest.
We don't want the perfect one. We want the one
who limps the way that we limp. The one who says
the wrong words that we say. The one who panics
at the wrong moments. The one who snaps at the
wrong people. The one who breaks promises. The
one who gets caught. Because deep down we know
that we would have gotten caught too. We understand
them. We kind of feel bad for them. It's like
when the flawless hero walks onto the screen
and we think, well, must be exhausting being
that perfect all the time. There's this one actor.
It's like every time you see him in a movie,
you know he's always going to lose the girl.
He's too good. He's way too pretty. The guy who
plays Cyclops in the X -Men, oh my gosh, come
on, he seems like a nice guy. But then, you know,
we hate it. We don't want the girl to choose
the good guy. We make up in our heads reasons
why that good guy deserves to be ignored and
rejected. But then the camera cuts to the side.
The character who's sweating, confused, and frankly,
morally reprehensible. Exactly. And suddenly
we're like, there he is. That's my guy. The one
who clearly has nothing redeeming about him.
The one who actually makes everything worse and
makes me feel better about myself. That's the
guy for me, but hey, at least he's honest. Dismisses
that guy. A man who is something of a mystery,
except we know he deserves to be punished as
a criminal because he is one. And Jesus, well,
well he's Jesus. Come on. Does anybody really
want to root for the perfect person? Does anyone
really want to pay attention to Jesus as a person?
As someone to connect with? As a savior, yes,
absolutely. But do you really want to connect
with Jesus as a human being? Yes, he's human,
but do you really want to think of him that way?
Colossians keep shouting at us. You don't understand.
He's the image of the invisible God. He's the
firstborn. That's the guy to be like. Follow
him, please. Let's be honest. When Paul says,
in him all things hold together, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. Most of us hear it like a refrigerator
magnet or a stitched pillow at Hobby Lobby, the
Jesus store. you know frankly you're like oh
that's pretty that's some good stitch work on
there it doesn't quite hit doesn't really connect
doesn't mean anything you're just kind of like
well put it right behind you know my hip because
you know my lumbar is sore because we're far
more aware at a time when it says in him all
things hold together frankly we're just a little
bit more aware of how things are coming apart
for us so we gravitate toward the character who's
coming apart too The more we watch Jesus, the
more we admire Him. But the more we watch dismiss,
the more we understand Him. And nine times out
of ten, the person you understand is the one
you root for. He gives us a place to hide our
hope. If that guy could be saved, then maybe
someone like me could too. Colossians 1, 17 through
18. Jesus is before all things, and in Him all
things hold together, and He is the head of the
body, the church. But you see, here's the tension.
Colossians, it insists that Jesus is the one
who holds reality itself together. You remember
like the word is moving on the waters at creation
and all, yet we keep trying to rewrite the story.
We complain that the stories turn out exactly
the way that they were designed. We say, well,
I didn't want that to happen as if the universe
owed us a gentler episode. We watch the blonde
dragon lady descending into darkness, and then
we're angry when she suffers for it in the eighth
season. We watch nine seasons of a sitcom, watch
two characters fall in love exactly as the writers
set up in episode one, And then we roll our eyes
when they get together at the end and say, oh,
that was terrible. We want our version that makes
us feel better about ourselves and our expectations.
We want our own story arc. We want our own ending.
And when the ending is different, the anger wells
up. And that's exactly what happens with the
man we keep trailing through the shadows, Dismas,
the one who did what we do, the one who ignored
what God had designed people to do. He took the
storyline that built on God's design and said,
no thanks, I'll improvise. The one who stole,
maimed, killed. But even when we try to scribble
all over the script and add all of our notes
in red, thinking that we are the next Robert
Downey Jr. We try to ruin the original story.
The author doesn't abandon the story. The author
doesn't abandon us. See, Dismas doesn't know
it yet, but as much as he tried to escape a story
that God would have originally wanted for him,
God is about to sweep him up into a redemption
that we never could have imagined. Colossians
1, 19 and 20. For in Jesus all the fullness of
God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile
to himself all things Making peace by the blood
of his cross And this is where the whole thing
cuts open if God's story only worked when characters
behaved properly and Followed the right person.
We wouldn't have a story. We wouldn't even have
a pamphlet We'd have a very very short blurb
Because the fullness of God, it doesn't show
up only in the scenes where everything is tidy
and fits what it's supposed to do. It shows up
right when the story derails and derails spectacularly.
Look at the cast around Jesus. Disciples who
blurt out the wrong answer at the wrong time.
Followers who can't stay awake through a prayer
meeting. A betrayer who thinks the perfect moment
to hand Jesus over is the exact moment that Jesus
has finally revealed who he really is. Thanks,
Judas. If this were a movie, the same audience
that was so excited to see all of those characters
mess up and ruin things would still be yelling,
what were you doing? He was getting to the good
part. He was so close to making everything finally
work. And then it gets worse. As Jesus is betrayed,
as his story is ruined by the characters we were
originally excited to see, the ones whose character
flaws were just like ours, even while we didn't
want to admit it. Two thieves appear on the hill
with Jesus, about to be executed for crimes they
really did commit. And just to be clear, these
are two criminals. We get those pictures of the
three crosses, and we see two people up there.
These are not two cute commentators for the story
of Jesus. These are not Statler and Waldorf in
the Muppets heckling Jesus from some pretend
balcony. These are not charming old men making
snarky commentary. These are hardened criminals,
genuinely dangerous and genuinely guilty. And
that's the point. These were not actors sitting
around the casting table discussing who was going
to play each part, making an amazing story that
would win the Academy Award. These were people
taking the beauty of God's world and destroying
it, betraying it, ruining it. But the fullness
of God means that while their sinful rebellion
was never how it should have been, God would
still step into the ruined story and find a way
to redeem it. God says you broke the narrative.
You mangled the plot. You took the only character
that was good in this and threw him away for
the others. But I'm still going to set it right.
And how does he do it? By letting the only sinless
character in the narrative carry the consequences
of everyone else's improvisation. Being blamed
for what he didn't do while others lived according
to a lie Luke 23 To others who were criminals
were led away to be put to death with him One
of the criminals began to mock him, but the other
rebuked him saying Jesus remember me when you
come into your kingdom And he said to him today
you will be with me in paradise And that's what
we find with the two thieves who were given names
in early Christian tradition, Gestus and Dismas.
Gestus mocks Jesus. Dismas turns to him. And
everything in the story, all of Colossians' cosmic
claims that all the brokenness and improvisation
and rebellion, when we realized we completely
ignored it, suddenly collapses into a single
moment. The man whose resume is nothing but failure
puts all his hope in the one whose resume is
nothing but faithfulness. The one who deserves
nothing asks for everything. Paradise. And Jesus
gives it. See, that's the scandal of grace, the
punchline, if you will. The upside down kingdom,
Paul keeps shouting about In Colossians, the
worst character gets the keys to the kingdom.
This isn't something where we try to imagine
that Dismas up there has gone through all of
these things where now he's a good guy. He's
desperate and he knows it. But he turned to the
one who could finally give him everything. And
he does. And it's a good thing He does. Because
that's us. We do not deserve paradise. We did
not choose the right path. We still don't. We
did not cling to the right storyline. We threw
away the only one who ever followed it perfectly.
And yet, God still hands us the kingdom. Holding
the keys does not mean we earned them. But we
still have them anyway. Here is my hope. This
is my plea to all of you, if you will. Seeing
that the keys are now in our hands, my hope is
that we stop trying to rewrite the story to fit
what we wanted it to be. My hope is that we stop
insisting on the version that flatters us and
ignores our biases. My hope is that we would
stop returning to paths of corruption, self -protection,
and self -creation. My hope is that we would
now take the time that we have to say more than
Dismas ever did to say, Lord, change me. Help
me understand why I chose what was wrong. Before
I enter your kingdom that I will never deserve,
let me follow you now. I hope so. Because maybe
in that moment, maybe in that surrender, maybe
at that cry in the ruins of all that we did,
turning toward the true firstborn, as he is on
the cross for us, maybe that becomes the chapter,
just like Dismas, that stands for all eternity.
And maybe that becomes the chapter where the
author himself rewrites our ending and the ending
of all of those we reach forever. Thanks be to
God.