It's Been Around for Decades

          Frankly I don’t get it. Why everyone feels a sudden rush to get up and leave the movie when the credits start to roll is beyond me, especially when people know there may be an extra scene at the end of the credits. I can’t tell you how many people I know who are huge X-men fans who were red faced with shame and filled with regret when I told them about the resurrection of Professor X in a scene after the credits—the scene that they missed. I took a group of students to see the second Matrix film, and they all left and waited for me in the lobby. “What’s wrong with you people?” I later asked. “You know Matrix 2 and 3 were filmed back-to-back and that 3 comes out in only six months—they were sure to have scenes to the finale at the end of the second movie.” And they did, and I enjoyed them very much. Having scenes at the end of the credits is not anything new. All of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies have them. The Phantom Menace (Star Wars Episode I) ran a subtle Darth Vader breathing sound at the end of its credits. I can remember scenes in or after the credits in movies as far back as History of the World, Strange Brew, Airplane (and its sequel), and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The lesson is a simple one: “Stay through the credits people!” Which is to say, don’t quit till the story is done. And that’s a great lesson for our lives.

The Very, Very End

            There have definitely been times when I felt like walking out on the story—not the story of a movie but the story of the Christian life. David felt it too when he wrote “How long, O Lord, how long…” (Psalm 6:3). Sometimes we all get discouraged and feel like quitting. We want to cry to God, “How long till the story is over?” The bad parts in our own story go so long sometimes that we suffer several temptations: 1. that maybe it’s not a story at all—that it doesn’t have any meaning; 2. that it’s a story that has no happy ending; 3. or that there is no author governing the story—no God to make it matter or make it good.

            But the New Testament writers were clear in saying that we’ve got to persevere: “May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance” (2 Thess 3:5); “…you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:3-5); “You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised” (Heb 10:36-37). The Christian life isn’t always about growth and new learning; sometimes it’s about stubborn, persistent, consistent perseverance. And the biblical message is clear: Don’t quit! Stay to the end. Stay through the credits. In fact, in the Christian story, the credits are one of the best parts.

           In Revelation 3:5 Jesus says, “He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.” And at the end of Revelation, the book of life is opened and the credits are read out loud:

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
(Rev 20:12-15)

I don’t know about you, but that’s going to be one time in the story when the credits really matter to me. To hear my name called, to be told “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:23)—that will be credit indeed.