Much more better

Maybe this is bad to say, but one of my favorite fictional characters is Jack Sparrow — pardon me, Captain Jack Sparrow — from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He’s a really fascinating character and is unpredictable at best, so he’s fun to watch and listen to. Johnny Depp created the most wonderful dialect for the Jack Sparrow character. He’s infinitely quotable, to the point that even a stickler like me has no problem dropping superlatives in favor of using a grammtical error . . . just because it’s fun to say.

In the second movie, Jack Sparrow uses the phrase “much more better” to desribe the treasure he wants his scallywag crew to help him find. Of course, much more better is completely wrong. But coming from Jack Sparrow, it couldn’t be more appropriate. And if you think about it, what phrase could replace that? You can’t really say best. It doesn’t have the oomph. And much better falls short.

So . . . much more better it is.

And, again, this may be irreverant but every time I hear John 10:10, this is the superlative descriptor I think of.

John 10:10 in the New Living Translation goes like this:

¹⁰ The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

 

Personally, I think it’s better communicated in the Message. But you have to start at verse 6 to understand the context of what Christ is talking about.

 

 ^6-10Jesus told this simple story, but they had no idea what he was talking about. So he tried again. “I’ll be explicit, then. I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good—sheep stealers, every one of them. But the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.

 

See that? “Real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.”

 

More and better life.

 

I always read that “much more better life.” Because . . . well . . . it’s true.

 

We crazy little scurrying petty humans populating this giant revolving dust ball think we’re living. Even if we go from day to day doing nothing but working or cleaning our homes or going to school, we think that’s life.

 

We couldn’t be further from the truth.

 

Life — real life — is something Christ gives us. It’s something you get when you choose to allow Jesus into your life.

 

I don’t usually post on weekends. But this is Christmas Eve, and I just felt like I should. And, besides, I went outside this morning to take pictures of the sunrise. I froze my hiney off, but the shots were worth it.

 

But my favorite shot wasn’t of the sun. It’s of a dead sunflower.

 

 

Kansas is full of sunflowers. It’s our state flower. And they’re so fascinating when they’re alive because they turn their faces to follow the sun, and when the goes down in the evenings, they sleep. But when the sun comes up the next morning, they rise with it. But not in the winter time. In the winter, they’re dead.

 

But the thing about sunflowers is that they always come back. Wild sunflowers are actually weeds, so of course they never really die.

 

And that’s the thing about life with Christ — it never actually dies. It just sleeps for a while. And even in the dark, cold winters of our existence on Earth, when it seems like the sun is never going to rise, eventually it does. And then, we have light again.

 

Maybe that’s too deep for a Christmas Eve morning, but I think that in these dark times that we live in, it’s good to remember that the sun may set but that it’s going to rise again. And even if we can’t see it, it’s still there, just waiting for the moment to rise again. And even though flowers might turn brown and die in the winter time, that doesn’t mean they’re gone.

 

And once the sun is up and the day is started, life can get moving again. And not just life as usual, real life. Much more better.