March 11, 2018 – John 3:14-21
John 3:14-21
Remember Me – Lent at the Movies 4 – Coco
4th Sunday in Lent – February 11, 2018
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Coco, the latest offering from Pixar Animation, won the Oscar last Sunday for
Best Animated Feature.
And it’s easy to see why.
It tells a great, twisting story about love and family and memory with an
original and arresting visual style.
It tells the story of Miguel, a Mexican boy who longs to become a musician.
But, here’s the thing: the drama is generated by the fact that his family forbids it!
They are cobblers! And music is absolutely forbidden!
Why, you ask?
Because their great great grandfather left their great great grandmother and
his young daughter Coco to pursue a career in music long long ago.
The fact that he can’t pursue a career in music is crushing for young Miguel.
The action takes place on the Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead,
when dead family members are especially remembered.
Photos of the dead are placed on altars in the family home, food is put out for them,
and their graves are visited.
If they are remembered in this way, the dead can visit the living for the day.
Well, Miguel is mysteriously transported to the Realm of the Dead,
and while there he figures if he can’t get his family’s blessing he can seek out
his great great grandfather and get his blessing to become a musician!
And so Miguel begins his great journey in the land of the dead to find blessing and
become who he was meant to be.
The Land of the Dead, it is comforting to know, is a beautiful beautiful place,
alive with a neon orange glow.
But the dead only reside there as long as they are remembered by the living –
if they are forgotten, they fade away and cease to exist.
So part of Miguel’s quest is making sure that
his great great grandfather is not forgotten by his family.
Once Miguel is in the land of the dead, the movie becomes very sinuous and twisty,
and it is not easy for Miguel to find blessing.
He experiences doubt, disbelief, and death.
He experiences confusion and despair and fear.
He sometimes feels like he has to decide between two sets of people he loves.
It is quite a journey.
But above all, it is a journey into understanding, memory, forgiveness, and love.
And that makes it well worth the price of admission.
Today we hear some of the most famous words of Jesus in the New Testament.
And they are spoken to Nicodemus, who is having a conversation with Jesus.
This is the first time we meet Nicodemus, and he comes to Jesus by night.
Nicodemus is a Jewish religious leader who has heard of and seen all that Jesus is doing.
He has seen something happening in and through Jesus that he can’t quite explain.
He has seen and heard of healing and love and celebration.
He has never encountered anything quite like this before and so he asks Jesus in confusion:
“Where are you from?”
To which Jesus ultimately responds with the most famous verse in the New Testament:
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever sets their heart on him
will not perish but find fullness of life.
This begins a long journey for Nicodemus, a long journey into just what it means for him that
through Jesus God has come to love the whole world in Jesus.
In John’s Gospel, the world God loves is not just the world of butterflies and rainbows.
In John’s Gospel, the world includes the dark places of the world as well, the not so nice parts.
In Jesus, God has come to love the whole world, every single part of it,
and every single part of you, to redeem it and love it into loveliness.
And once you have experienced that type of love, with no conditions, that love that
loves all of you – Jesus invites you to love in the same way.
Love one another, Jesus will say later on, in the same way that I have loved you –
that is, with no conditions.
Nicodemus is invited to begin this journey this morning: this journey into love,
this journey into compassion, this journey into forgiveness.
At the end of their conversation today, though, nothing is resolved.
Nicodemus just kind of wanders off with, presumably, a lot to think about.
His journey is likely not unlike Miquel’s: pretty twisty!
Jesus opens a door for him into a new realm,
into God’s reign or kingdom that opens up a whole new way of thinking for him.
It opens up a realm of understanding in which enemies are to be loved,
in which every person has dignity, in which healing is possible.
It is a realm in which “eternal life” or, better, “fullness of life” can be found.
In which he will find who he is truly meant to become:
loved with no conditions, he is invited to become a person who loves with no conditions.
We don’t know all the twists and turns Nicodemus’s journey takes.
But it probably shares some features of Miguel’s journey on his quest
to become who he was meant to be.
And it probably shares features of yours.
It probably involves doubt, and fear, and confusion.
It probably involves anxiety and depression and unbelief.
It probably has its fair share of decisions you feel forced to make even though
you’d rather not have to choose.
It probably feels like it will never end – and that when it does the end is not a good one.
By the end of John’s Gospel, the end does not look good.
The end looks like death – and a grisly, unjust death at that: death on a cross.
The end looks like a dead body, a body that had so much hope attached to it, now laid in a tomb.
It looks like defeat, it looks like humiliation, it looks like nothing good could possibly come of it.
And yet . . . and yet – there is a blessing in it.
And the blessing comes, somehow, when Nicodemus emerges from the shadow world into
the full light of day.
And at great personal risk brings a hundred pounds – a hundred pounds! – of spices and oil
with which to anoint Jesus’ body.
And so Nicodemus shows forth for all to see where he has set his heart,
whose path he will follow,
whom he will remember.
Nicodemus shows forth where he has found fullness of life,
Where he has found love –
and what he will dedicate his life to, which is simply this:
loving without conditions, as Jesus did.
Because loving without conditions is where fullness of life is to be found.
In the end of the movie, Miguel plays a role in bringing understanding and compassion,
and so brings reconciliation to his family.
His great great grandfather is forgiven and Miguel secures what he has longed for:
his family’s love and blessing with no conditions! No conditions!
He is blessed to become what he was meant to be: a musician,
and so is allowed to return to the land of the living and
bring blessing in the way he was meant to bring blessing: as a musician.
It is a long and very individual road to get there
but I have no doubt Miguel would say it was worth it.
Like Nicodemus and like Miguel each of us is on a journey to fullness of life –
to becoming what we were meant to become.
Like Nicodemus and Miguel there are many obstacles to that becoming and
many twists and turns in that journey.
But also like them, we have a powerful tool at our disposal – it is the power of memory.
Memory is key in the film – the dead are to be remembered and loved in memory.
And this is a powerful force that ultimately works healing.
The song that crystallizes this in the film is “Remember Me,”
Miguel’s great great grandfather’s most famous composition,
which Miguel sings at the end:
Remember me for I will soon be gone
Remember me and let the love we have live on
And know that I’m with you the only way that I can be
Until you’re in my arms again
Remember me
If you close your eyes and let the music play
Keep our love alive, I’ll never fade away
I am sure that Nicodemus never forgot the words Jesus spoke to him that first night:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever sets their heart on him
will not perish but find fullness of life.
I am sure Nicodemus never forgot the healing and the forgiving and the feeding that happened
wherever Jesus went.
And I am sure that transformed him, slowly,
in his journey through doubt and despair and darkness.
He remembered Jesus.
Every week, we go to a lot of trouble to remember Jesus.
And in words we hear every single Sunday Jesus simply says, “Remember me.”
Do this in remembrance of me: read my story, think about what it means for you and for
This whole world God so loves, and then remember me by sharing the meal.
Remember me.
Remember me so you won’t forget what it’s all about.
Remember me so you’ll remember what your life is for.
Remember me so you’ll remember what fullness of life looks like.
Do all this so you’ll remember how much I love this whole crazy world,
the living and the dead and everyone inbetween.
Do it so you’ll remember how much I love you in the darkness and in the journey,
in the doubt and in the despair.
Do it for in remembering me I actually become present with you and part of you.
Do it and like Nicodemus and Miguel you will find who you are meant to be and
you will come to the full light of day.
Remember me – and find blessing – with no conditions.
Remember me – and love, with no conditions.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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