I Love You 3,000

In this post you are going to get some nerdiness from me. (I know, shocking right?) Every year on Father’s Day I try to do something that is related, and it can be fun to see what I can come up with. This year, I had a moment of nerd when I was watching the most recent Avenger’s movie and thought that would make a great Father’s Day message.

If you aren’t sure of, or don’t know what the Avengers are, it’s a comic book movie, and the most recent one was the 4th movie in the Avenger’s series, and the 22nd overall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Meaning there are 22 movies that are all related. They’ve been coming out for the last 10 years and really got started with the first Ironman movie It finished this first long story arc with this most recent Avenger’s movie called Endgame.

Endgame was slightly successful. The most recent numbers (this may have changed when you read this) I’ve seen show that it’s made $2.7bil which puts it at #2 all time for a movie to make and about $50mil behind the #1 movie Avatar. As for how wildly popular these movie have been, in the top 10 highest grossing movies of all time, 4 of them are avengers movies and 5 are in the MCU.

For all of that, and sometime I want to do a movie marathon of all the movies (it’ll take a while), there was a line from the last movie that really sticks out.

I can't read the subtitles, but it was the best
version I could find

There was a lot of speculation on where that line came from. And you can’t nerd well, if you don’t nerd at all, and when it comes to comic book movies…..let’s just say that there are a lot of nerds out there.

Someone put together the runtimes for all the movies, and that total time comes to about 3,000 minutes…or so they say. It’s a little iffy as to whether it really is or not. But, thankfully, the directors of the movie clarified this, and I think the story is even better.

The truth is just like the movie. Robert Downey Jr., who plays Tony Stark (or Ironman) would tell his kids that he loves them tons, so just like the movie. And kids being kids have to push that even farther to 1-up their parents, and so they would respond with, I love you 3,000.

We got that line the first time in this scene, but it comes out again at the end of the movie.

******SPOILER AHEAD******

At the end of the movie, at Tony’s funeral, he’s made a recording of himself saying goodbye to his friends and family, and to his daughter he says, "I love you 3,000."

And no, I’m not crying, I just have something in my eye….just like I did when I saw the movie

Dad’s, do you have something like that with your kids? Something like that that you tell them?

Kids, and this means kids of any age, do you remember your dad or one of your parents telling you something like that? It could even be something silly, but you know what it means, and it means more because it is silly.

In our scripture reading, we’re told that nothing can separate us from the love of God. When we read this verse, we take the superhero route with it.

That’s the one that says, even if I die, I’ll still love you, because I love you so much that even if I’m not with you anymore, I’ll still love you and you’ll have the memory of my love for you.

That’s the superhero route because in big crazy action movies, that’s when the lead character always says that he loves someone. Except this one. Tony Stark has learned what it means to truly love someone, which wasn’t a given that he would know that at the start of everything, so he tells her that all the time

If this were us, and we apply it to our daily lives as real people, this is the equivalent of us telling those we love, I love you tons, or even tons and tons.

It describes the love that we have for those we care about. It describes the all-consuming love that we can have for our kids, for our spouses, for our families, for the people that are most important in our lives.

This is the greatest love that we can give to someone else.

But what if God can take it another step farther.

Why does this story line work so well? It’s because it recognizes the one place that we know that we have a limit.

We will die. We know this. It’s probably not today, maybe not tomorrow, but we know that at some point in our lives that it will come. And when we die, we know that we’ll no longer be with those that we love. But we also know that the memory of our love stays with them, even if we are no longer there.

This is where God takes it a step farther.

God doesn’t have the same limit that we have. God sent his Son into the world, out of love for us.

Jesus died out of love for us.

Out of love for us, Jesus rose from the dead so that we aren’t alone. God goes with us, from life through death, and into eternal life in the world to come.

We can’t be separated from God, no matter what.

God is love that is bigger than what we can experience or know, but it is still there with us.

For all of us that are Father's, or parents, foster parents, grand-parents, mentors, aunts, uncles, or just an important adult in the life of a kid, we know what it is like to watch them and know that God is there.

From that moment when you first find out that you are going to be a Father or a parent, God says,

Through all of the doctors visits and the preparations that are made for your kid to enter into the world

From that moment of birth and the first time you hold that new child

During all the fussy nights and exhausting days

Through all the birthday parties and skinned knees and all the times when they can’t even because they’re very small and can’t control all the feelings

Through all the arguments, slammed doors, and looks that only kids can give to their parents

Thankfully, the first time they get behind the wheel to drive and really start growing up

When they graduate and leave home and start something new on their own

When they’ve fallen in love, and then out of love, and then in love again, all the many times that might happen

When they tell you that they’re going to have a little one of their own

When you watch them through their troubles, and struggles, and the pains and hurts that they go through, even as an adult

Even when they are watching you, when your life is slowing down, and beginning it’s journey to the end

Nothing can separate us from God’s great love. If there is no other constant in all the universe, it is that one fact that God’s love is there.

This week, go out and know that no matter what, no matter who, no matter how the world is taking shape around you, take this one thing with you.

That for all that we are, and all that we hope to be, and all that we struggle through, God responds to us and to all those who are around us and says

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Sunday, June 16, 2019

I Love You 3,000

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