Did you hear the one about?

There is an old joke, perhaps you’ve heard it, it asks, “what kind of vehicle would Jesus drive?” The answer is, “a pick-up, because he was a carpenter.” The first time I heard the joke, I answered, a Chrysler (pronounced: Christ-ler). Or perhaps, I’d add, a Dodge Colt! Pretty clever, eh? The person telling the joke didn’t think so, he felt I had ruined the joke. I suppose I did, and I’m sorry.
 
Jokes work because they have some sort of twist to them. There has to be an unexpected element or they won’t garner the laugh that intended.
 
Very few jokes get funnier with repeated hearing. Already knowing the punchline doesn’t make the joke funnier, or even funny at all, eventually.
 
Watching a repeat broadcast of a sporting event that you already know the outcome of usually ruins the enjoyment. That’s why people are so adamant, “don’t tell me who won.
 
There are some things, however, the bear repeating. Things that, even if we know the whole story, still manage to carry a message that is profoundly moving.
 
I contend that the Gospels are the sort of thing that can withstand being told over and over again. The story of Jesus has been told in many different languages; in songs; in paintings and stained glass windows; in movies and TV; colouring books; in every way imaginable.
 
I have told a story in my sermons several times, it involved me and three other boys getting lost at sea. It surprises me how often people say after hearing the story that the whole time they were wondering if I had survived. How else could I be telling the story? This is away for us to get into the story and experience the drama of it, by thinking of it as happening in real time.
 
This week I will read the Holy Week story as if this is my first time hearing it, as if it is happening in real time, as if I don’t know the outcome. I will tear-up and wonder how humanity could sink so low. I will commit myself, despite my all to obvious failings, to do better, to proclaim the Gospel, not only with my lips, but in all that I do.
 
It is important for me to retell the story of the Pasion of Jesus Christ—to feel the whips and nails, the insults and the spitting—so that I can remember at the core of my being the depth of God’s love. And I pray that this hearing, this knowledge will impact me in such a way that I will learn that the best way to tell the story of Jesus is by living it, by doing the loving thing in every circumstance we find ourselves in. Love is the telling of the Gospels.