[Use the Easter Indy Talk PowerPoint with this presentation]
[PowerPoint Slide 1]
After a wait of almost twenty years, he's finally back. Later this year, Harrison Ford dons the famous fedora once again and takes to the screens in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I'm sure that most of us here have spent Bank Holiday afternoons or evenings watching Indy raiding lost arks, escaping temples of doom and going on last crusades. Here's a clip from the not-so-accurately named Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. As you watch it, pay particular attention to the reactions of Indy's companions.
[Play the clip from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Start time: 1.31.33 (in chapter 30 of the DVD)
End time: 1.34.50
Clip length: Three minutes and 17 seconds
The clip starts with a shot of the tank heading for the top of the cliff, with Indiana (Harrison Ford) standing on the tank and fighting a German army officer. It ends as the wind blows Indiana's trademark hat back to him.
If you are unable to show the clip, say the following:
There's a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy has just made a daring rescue, freeing his father and their friend Marcus from the Nazi soldiers. However, Indy was grappling with a Nazi officer on top of a runaway tank, which plummeted over a cliff. As Professor Jones senior, Marcus and their friend Sallah take in the fact that Indy is dead, Indiana hauls himself up over the cliff a few yards away and comes to join his mourners. Eventually, they notice him and realise that he survived.
Did you notice the reaction of Indy's father and his friends when they thought that Indiana was dead. Naturally enough, they were shocked and distraught to lose somebody that they loved, and they were delighted when they discovered that they hadn't lost him after all. A natural enough reaction, and one which is worth keeping in mind as we meet another group of people who have just suffered the death of someone very special to them.
[PowerPoint Slide 2]
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
[PowerPoint Slide 3]
While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' "Then they remembered his words.
[PowerPoint Slide 4]
When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Luke 24:1-11
(Today's New International Version)
[PowerPoint Slide 5]
The disciples didn't believe the claim that Jesus had risen from the dead. To be fair, you can't really blame them for that. With Jesus, we're not talking about a near-death experience, like Indiana Jones. It's one thing to come to terms with someone who narrowly survives a brush with death, but quite another for someone to be properly, definitively dead and then not be dead anymore. His disciples had seen him die, they had seen his body and buried it. People just don't come back to life, do they?
But Luke's gospel goes on to tell us about Jesus appearing to his disciples. He met with two of them who were walking to a town called Emmaus. Here's an account of what happened when those two disciples got back to Jerusalem to tell the others:
[PowerPoint Slide 6]
While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
[PowerPoint Slide 7]
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.
Luke 24:36-43
(Today's New International Version)
[PowerPoint Slide 8]
Jesus offered convincing proof to his disciples that it really was him, risen from the dead. [click] He let them touch him; [click] he showed them the wounds that his execution had left on his hands and his feet; [click] he even ate something in front of them, to prove that he wasn't just a ghostly apparition. Then, once he had convinced his friends that he really had risen from the dead, he explained what his death and resurrection were all about:
[PowerPoint Slide 9]
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, "This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Luke 24:45-47
(Today's New International Version)
[PowerPoint Slide 10]
Christians believe that Jesus' death was more than just a terrible miscarriage of justice, an accident of history. It was the central part of God's big plan, his way of making it possible for human beings to be forgiven, to be able to be friends with God. Christians believe that Jesus' death makes it possible for people to say sorry for rejecting God, and to turn back to him. [click] That's what Jesus means when he says that 'repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in my name' - that people could repent - or turn away from living life their own way - and be forgiven. Christians believe that Jesus' death achieved all this, and that God raised him from the dead as a proof that the plan had worked.
At Easter, Christians remember Jesus' death and celebrate it. They celebrate it not because they are glad that Jesus had to go through pain and suffering, but because of what his death achieved. And they also celebrate his rising from the dead, the clear sign from God that Jesus' death had achieved its purpose and made it possible for people to repent and be forgiven.
This Easter, as we anticipate the return of Indiana Jones in just a few short weeks, let's also take some time to think about someone else who came back - after three days, rather than 19 years. Let's take some time to consider the claims of Jesus and the difference that Christians maintain he can make to people's lives.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Paramount 1989, certificate PG)