Imagine…

One little spark…

Of inspiration, is at the heart of all creation.  Right at the start of everything that’s new, one little spark lights up for you!

That’s how Journey Into Imagination at EPCOT begins.

The song celebrates the power of imagination and introduces us to the character of Figment – a “figment” of our imagination.  But those words could also describe God and the creation of the universe. Think about what kind of imagination would be needed to make all of this!  What level of brilliance would you need to create the thousands of different types of living beings on this planet? From blue whales to the common housefly, God created it as well as every variation we see within each species.  It’s fascinating to think about how creation is woven together, but to have the genius to envision the millions of species and variations within species is even more remarkable.  And not just living things.  Even snowflakes are all unique.  Who thinks of all the different ways you can make a snowflake?  A while ago, I was at a conference listening to pastor Erwin McManus talking about faith, and he told us about a guy who asked, “Why is it we grow up believing in lots of imaginary beings but as we grow up we stop believing in them, but we still hold on to God?”  And Erwin’s response was, “How do you know it wasn’t God who created imagination?”

God created imagination.

The power to be able to envision things we can’t see or touch – that is a gift from God.  And it is through this gift we are able to know God.  Imagination is what fuels faith and is what enables us to comprehend the incomprehensible.  God is so far beyond human understanding even his own name is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”[1] When Moses asked God to tell him his name, God said “I AM WHO I AM.”  I don’t think God was being evasive or cagey.  It’s just that “Bob” doesn’t summarize the essence of God.  No word or words really can.  Instead, we have to experience God to know God.  It’s why the Apostle John wrote in his first letter to the church, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”  It’s through love and faith that we come to know the creator of the universe.  Our imagination, the thing that fuels our faith, also helps us to bridge the gap between what is seen and what is unseen. 

But as we grow older, we tend to drive out imagination.

We start to become “realists.”  We rely only on what we see and what we know. But worse, we start being limited by it.  We stop reaching for the stars and instead set our sights on what we think we can achieve. As Andy Stanley once said, We begin to replace the “wow” with “how.” Meaning we become so fixated on the “how” that we shove the “wow” right out.[2]  In our faith, we question the virgin birth, the resurrection, Heaven and even God.  But that’s not the people God created us to be.  He gave us imagination so we could bring to life a world of possibilities that exceeded our reality.  That we could achieve things others would think were impossible.  The, the airplane, landing on the moon.  People thought these things at one time would never happen, but people who weren’t limited by “reality” chased their dreams and succeeded against the odds.  It’s imagination that powers those dreams.  As Robert Kennedy once said, “Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?”[3]  At this point in Jesus’ life where our reading begins, the Pharisees start to feel threatened by this upstart.  Jesus now has a group of dedicated disciples and he has been teaching in the synagogues and miraculously healing people.  Obviously, there is something different about this man that draws attention to him, and the Pharisees don’t like it.  They won’t admit it, but Jesus is drawing power and authority away from them and they are desperate to get it back.  They keep picking on him every chance they get.  They try to find ways to discredit him and his teachings.  And even though it goes against everything God commands of them, they plot to get rid of him, to break the Ten Commandments and kill him.   That’s where we pick up today.  The Pharisees already accused Jesus of breaking the law by picking grain on the Sabbath and now they are at it again. 

6 On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. 7 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. 8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there.

9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”

10 He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. 11 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus. – Luke 6:6-11

“What they might do to Jesus…”

Sounds ominous because it is.  This is just another way of saying they were plotting to kill him, and they try to justify it by saying they are doing it in God’s name.  But that’s a twisted view of the Bible.  Even any casual reading of either the Old or New Testament would show they were fooling themselves.  And because they are blinded by their desire for power, they can’t see what is right in front of them – Jesus the Messiah, the one promised long ago.  They can’t imagine this man could be the Messiah because that would mean changing their entire world.  So even though they see this man do miracles right in front of them, even though they are witnesses to things no man could possibly do, they haven’t even thought he could be the promised messiah.  In John 11, we read about how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  Now, if you had actually seen this miracle, if you knew it was real and there were tons of witnesses, you would think that would be enough to convince anyone.  But that’s how hard it is for us to escape from our fixed point of view.  We will hold onto false beliefs.  We will deny reality.  We will even embrace hypocrisy for the sake ouf our point of view.  People become so fixated on their own reality, they often miss the miracles right in front of them. The Pharisees call a meeting of all the Jewish leaders and they say, “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”  And Caiaphas, the high priest, says, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”  He even prophesied “that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one (John 11:47-52).”. Although they were doing it for their own selfish reasons, they ended up helping Jesus fulfill the prophecies that would do exactly that.

How amazing would it have been to know you were walking with God!

These people missed out on the opportunity of a thousand lifetimes because they had lost the “wow” and had been focused on the “how.”  Miracles were being performed right in front of them and they couldn’t see it!  Instead, they were laser-focused on the ramifications of allowing this man to continue teaching and saw it as a threat instead of a blessing.  But before we become too judgmental about the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders, can we really say we are all that different?  Do we really keep our eyes open for the ways in which God works in our own lives?  True, we may not have seen someone rise from the dead, but it’s still so easy to miss the “wow.”  When I was going to UCLA, I worked two summers up in the dorms.  The pay wasn’t great, but they covered room and board and it beat having to move back home just for the summer.  At night, all of us working on campus would hang out and I remember this guy who said he didn’t believe in love.  Having experienced love many times myself – or at least what I thought was love – I was shocked.  I said, “You’re telling me you don’t think love exists?”  And he said, “Nope.  It’s just a chemical reaction within your body that stimulates different hormones to make you think you’re feeling something we call ‘love’ but that’s all it really is.  It’s just a chemical reaction.”  I asked him why this chemical reaction only happened between certain people and not just everyone we met, and he told me it was based on certain physical and mental stimuli hard-wired into our brains as we grew up.  Is there some truth to what he said?  Sure.  Love does create chemical reactions within our bodies that causes us to react in different ways.  Are we influenced by our environment and how we grew up?  Sure, our choices are always affected by our experiences.  But does that mean love doesn’t exist?  Talk about taking the “wow” out of life.

But to some degree we all do that.

We forget we live in a world where God came to earth for the salvation of all humanity.  For 51 weeks out of the year we forget Jesus was resurrected after being hung on a cross, stabbed in the side of his body, and his dead body placed inside a stone tomb it took multiple men to seal.  If we constantly lived in the mindset that we walked with a God who could do these amazing things, maybe we would be more open to the possibilities that are right in front of us.  Maybe we would be more open to the work of the Holy Spirit within us.  And maybe we could truly be the children of God we were always meant to be.  I love going to a Disney theme park because they make you feel like you’re walking into a different world – a world that COULD exist.  A world of possibilities.  It’s a reminder that we are only limited by what we dare to achieve and that we are meant to create a better world.  Fifty years ago, Walt Disney World opened its gates for the first time to the public.  And on opening day one person commented, “Isn’t it too bad Walt didn’t live to see this?” To which another replied, “He did.  That’s why it’s here.”[4]  Embrace the gift of imagination that God has given you and see where it can take you.  Live a life that embraces the possibilities!  After all, we live in a world where Jesus lived, died, and rose again.  Anything is possible.

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[1] A quote by Winston Churchill describing Russia after the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. (Library of Congress)

[2] From a talk I attended at a conference where Andy was speaking.

[3] https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkreclaimingemoralvision.htm Actually RFK was paraphrasing a quote by George Bernard Shaw in a speech at the University of Kansas.

[4] Craig Groeschel, It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It, (Zondervan, 2008) p. 48