“Frozen,” the recent Disney movie, seems to have taken kid-dom by storm. At least in my world. My two girls know all the songs, play the characters, and love the story. It is an astonishing tale with bright colors, flying ice, dramatic turns.

And that’s just the latest. Before that there was Despicable Me, about astonishing characters that don’t exist in real life (minions, among others). And the Lion King, where animals talk. And Toy Story, where inanimate dolls do. Finding Nemo, where fish and sharks sing together. That’s not to go into Monsters University, or How to Train Your Dragon, or even further back into Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or Snow White.

Here’s the thing… they are all unreal and fantastical. And they are all astonishing.

Movies have done that. Graphics and colors and movement… they have raised the bar on astonishing. Good news comes in fairy-godmother forms, magical responses, wondrous self-realizations.

I wonder in the midst of all of it – are we astonished by the real Good News? Does the Gospel – the incredible, way-more-than-Disney-could-ever-do awesome news of God become man, Jesus Christ who atoned for our sin on the cross and rose from the dead and lives forever to forgive and give life in his own name – does that still astonish me?
And what does it mean if it doesn’t?

Not that we’re after feelings. But it seems like the really, really, really good news sometimes gets lost in the distraction of the colors and imaginations of man. The story of the Gospel could fit right into such an imagination. Yet it isn’t imaginary. It’s real, more real than anything else we know.

So here’s a push to re-evaluate the incredible-ness of the good news. Here’s a vote for ‘gospel astonishment.’ Gospel astonishment that drives us to our knees, makes our hearts soft, leads us to sing, to act, to feel… and keeps us right where we need to be.

“God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Astonishing!