Finding Nemo is one of my all time favorite movies and you have shed a whole new light on the story. You have also given me a reason to sit down with my knitting and watch it again

Deb

Whenever I’m sick I like to curl up on the couch and watch one of my favorite movies. A movie so familiar I don’t really have to be well enough to concentrate and can doze off for a few minutes and still jump right back in whatever part I wake up to. Usually I watch either the six hour long BBC version of the movie “Pride and Prejudice” or I watch “The Sound of Music”. However, when I was sick last month, I realized I had lent “Pride and Prejudice” to my friend Anna and I couldn’t find “The Sound of Music” and was too tired to look for it. Instead, I settled for another choice, the always wonderful animated film “Finding Nemo”.

As a former preschool teacher, I take great delight in well done children’s movies. They are easy to follow, always entertaining and the good guy always wins. As I watched the movie once again, I realized that “Finding Nemo” is actually an Easter movie. Two fish, Marlin and Dory, are on an epic journey searching the ocean for Marlin’s missing son, Nemo. Even though their mission seems nearly fruitless and impossible, they continue to search for Nemo. Thing heat up when Dory and Marlin are accidentally swallowed by a whale. Marlin suffers from a loss of hope, despairing that he doesn’t understand how they will ever escape the whale’s belly. Just as Jesus, on the night that he was arrested, begged God to save him, to pass the cup of death to someone else if it is possible, Marlin doesn’t understand how being swallowed by a whale or being put to death on a cross could every bring wholeness. Marlin and Dory eventually take a leap of faith and trust the whale, who spits them out at their destination, allowing them to find Nemo. It’s only after they experience this Jonah like resurrection that they succeed.

In April we spend the first week journeying with Jesus as he grapples with what God is asking him to do. We walk with Jesus as he despairs and fears what is being asked of him on Maundy Thursday. We are with him on Good Friday as Jesus takes that leap of faith and trusts that God knows what is best for him and we rejoice along with the world as disciples on Easter morning and onward when we celebrate Christ’s resurrection and the gift of everlasting life.

I’ve found that in the strangest places we can find Easter stories. If we think on the gift of new life coming out of death we can find Easter celebrations everywhere. In the seventh Harry Potter book, in our gardens as life springs out of formerly barren earth, in a visit to post-Katrina New Orleans, and even in the children’s movie “Finding Nemo”.

I invite you this April to journey with a family of faith throughout Holy Week. I invite you to reflect on and experience the arrest and betrayal, the death and the resurrection of Christ. And throughout the Easter season and even after Easter is over I invite you to encounter the world as a child of the resurrection. Remember the new life and great gifts you have been given and look for reflections of our life in Christ everywhere!

Holy Week Schedule:
Maundy Thursday and First Communion Service: Thursday, April 1st at 7:00pm
Good Friday Service: Friday, April 2nd at 5:30pm
Easter Youth Led Family Service: Sunday, April 4th at 8:30am
Easter Traditional Service: Sunday, April 4th at 10:00am

Blessings,
Pastor Erin Nelson