The Story Behind “Easter Is Coming”
Two quick words of introduction and explanation: First, I realize this video is about Easter and we’re not yet there. But so many people have reported enjoyed seeing and sharing this video that I thought I’d make it available a few days early. Second, a number of folks have asked me where the idea for Easter is Coming came from, including most recently a colleague who is teaching a course on media, culture, and the gospel. So I decided to share what led up to a very fun, and now widely seen, endeavor. I hope it enriches your preparation for, and celebration of, the resurrection of our Lord.
The Origins of Easter is Coming
The story behind the Easter is Coming is rather simple and, at least for me, instructive. You see, I believe that creativity is essentially combinatorial. That’s a fancy word I picked up from Maria Popova – the genius behind one of my favorite websites: Brain Pickings. Essentially it means that creativity is not an isolated or individual process but rather comes about when ideas bump and collide with each other. To put it another way, there are no original ideas, only ideas that are adopted, adapted, stretched, combined with other ideas, and the like. And through this process new ideas appear.
In the case of Easter is Coming, I’d stumbled upon a YouTube video called “Lost Generation” and was both moved by it as well as captivated by its creative presentation, offering a narrative that, when you read the discreet phrases that made it up backwards, now offered an equally sensible but entirely opposite meaning from when you read it forward. Sometimes this kind of technique is called a palindrome, a word or phrase (or number) that can be read forward or backward. But that’s not quite right, as this isn’t a single word or number but rather sets of phrases that combine into sentences and produce a short narrative. So I’m not sure what to call this.
In any event, the technique fascinated me and I thought the author/poet/creator was incredibly creative. Interestingly, and to prove the earlier point about not equating creativity with originality, he borrowed and adapted his idea from an earlier political commercial for Lopez Murphy when he was running for president of Argentina (in 2006, I think). That video, called “The Truth,” is still on YouTube.
So all this was Saturday morning, the day before Palm Sunday in 2010. That afternoon, as is the case most Saturday afternoons, I was taking my daughter to a horseback riding lesson in Hugo, about 30 minutes from our home. So on the drive up and back, in between chatting with Katie, and while watching her lesson, I kept wondering if I could do that and how. I’d been recently working with Luke’s story of the resurrection which, like the other three, is quite candid about the absolute disbelief of those closest to Jesus when they first hear word of the resurrection. Luke’s draws that element out with his description of the disciples’ treating the story the women tell of the empty tomb as “an idle tale.” The Greek word for that is leros, the root of our word delirious, which means that the disciples essentially thought the women were out of their freakin’ minds.
The next day, the afternoon of Palm Sunday, I started playing around with how to capture that sense of the incredible nature of the resurrection and how everything seems kind of ludicrous about the Christian claim of resurrection and forgiveness until you believe it, and that shift in perspective changes everything. So with that in mind, and with the palidrome-like form of Lost Generation and The Truth as an inspiration, I just started playing around with phrases and sentences until I’d worked something out. It took the better part of the afternoon but wasn’t quite as hard as I thought. (You essentially get used to thinking in phrases and how to place the negative and positive affirmations between various neutral assertions.) Sunday night I started fiddling with some animation on iMovie and brought the script and rudimentary animation to Ben Cieslik, a December-grad from Luther who was working with us in the Center for Biblical Preaching while waiting for a call. He – notice, again, the theme of collaboration in creativity J – is way, way more competent in film, video, and animation than I will ever be. He took it and played around with different ways to present the text. Mine had essentially mimicked the scrolling text of Lost Generation and The Truth, whereas Ben thought of constructing and deconstructing a paragraph. More interesting and more original. We then tinkered with that arrangement together until we’d figured out the fading in and out, etc. and then gave thought to the narration.
I knew I didn’t really want to read it and I was pretty sure I wanted a female narrator. (I don’t know why, maybe inspired by Lost Generation.) So on Tuesday, when we had a rough cut of the video, we asked Karoline Lewis – who I think has a great voice for this kind of thing – to join us. Just to experiment, we each read and recorded a version, we recorded one where we read alternate lines, and we read one where one of us read the first half and the other read the second. But the one with Karoline alone was by far the best, so that was an easy choice. Then Ben and I scoured the free-online music scene and came up with two background songs. Ben put it all together – which I just described in half a sentence but was an incredible amount of work – and posted it on Thursday – Maundy Thursday, as it turned out. We mentioned it on Working Preacher, but other wise word spread via Facebook, etc., and folks started picking it up. All very fun.
Notes: 1) If you are receiving this post by email, you may need to click here to watch the video.
2) A number of folks ask whether they can show this in worship. The short answer: absolutely! 🙂
May we use and show this on Easter Sunday?
Wow! That was great. Thank you.
I love “The Easter is Coming” video. Thanks.
Powerful. Thank you for your creativity and sharing a different way to think about the truth and proclamation of Easter in our world and lives.
Incredible! I’m just stunned by how powerful that is… I’ll ask the same question that Emily asked above: may we use it at worship on Easter Sunday?
Absolutely. Thanks for checking in, Tim and Emily. Anyone can show it; no permissions necessary. 🙂
Way cool!
Wow!
Thank you, David, for sharing your creativity and giving us a powerful message!
Wow! Thanks Dave for sharing this “combinatorial” effort . . . simple, creative, powerful!
Very clever – more importantly – VERY true – thank you – I have shared the link with many friends
I accidentally had 2 versions of this playing at the same time. Maybe just because of the timing but it seemed even more powerful… like echoing truth, reinforcing the message.
Thanks to David, Karoline and the others…
This is amazing. Thank you.
I’m sitting at my computer clapping -THANK YOU!!!
Any way to make the text a bit bigger in the video? I’d like to show it in church but I am affraid people won’t be able to see the text… Its a great video.
I’m sorry, Tim. I have no idea how to make it larger. You could, perhaps, print the phrases running forward on a half sheet of paper and running backward on the other half and have people read along – and flip it over – as it plays. Just a thought. 🙂 Thanks for checking in.
Hi Tim-
Not sure if you’ve tried this but you can download a larger file here, http://cbpstore.luthersem.edu/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3&zenid=3qk72p53ppuvuqh5fahero3cc6
That might help with visibility.
I found this on working preacher and used it for a winter family retreat: no where near Easter, but an incredible message about the perspective and turn around. Thank you for producing this!! I appreciate all of the work and people that were involved to collaborate.
Is there a way of getting the words only to “Easter is coming?
Some of our members don’t have a computer but would like a copy of just the words. It was a great hit at our worship service.
Thanks.
Should be an easy request – but I’ve searched through all my documents and can’t find the original document. If interested – and if you have the time – you could probably freeze the video at the midpoint and transcribe it, but unfortunately that’s all I can offer. The challenge, perhaps, of the digital world…and not backing up my work often enough! Thanks for asking.
Easter is coming
But for many of us, this is not the ultimate reality
There is too much pain and suffering in the world today
Death has the last word
It would therefore be foolish to say that
The life and death of a first-century Jew named Jesus makes a difference
Why
Might makes right
Power is superior to compassion and
Despair is stronger than hope
So I refuse to believe
A man can come back from the dead
Sometimes the most important facts are the hardest to accept
Resurrection is a false hope
How can you say
An empty tomb changes everything
Don’t you see “God loves the world”
Is a lie
“Money is God”
And
“The one who dies with the most toys wins”
I will tell you what I tell my children
There is no more to this world than what you can see, hold, and buy
There is no mystery in everyday life, and
There is nothing sacred about ordinary things and people
Many of us simply do no believe that
God can give life to the dead, bring light from darkness, and create something out of nothing
But what if the testimony of the women at the tomb was true? Then…
God can give life to the dead, bring light from darkness, and create something out of nothing
Many of us simply do no believe that
There is nothing sacred about ordinary things and people,
There is no mystery in everyday life, and
There is no more to this world than what you can see, hold, and buy
I will tell you what I tell my children
“Money is God”
And
“The one who dies with the most toys wins”
Is a lie
“God loves the world”
Don’t you see
An empty tomb changes everything
How can you say Resurrection is a false hope
Sometimes the most important facts are the hardest to accept
A man can come back from the dead
So I refuse to believe
Despair is stronger than hope
Power is superior to compassion and
Might makes right
Why
The life and death of a first-century Jew named Jesus makes a difference
It would therefore be foolish to say that
Death has the last word
There is too much pain and suffering in the world today
But for many of us, this is not the ultimate reality
Easter is coming
Thanks, Ben, for taking the time to transcribe this. I put in the line breaks to make it easier for folks to read and follow. Thanks, again, very much!