Powerful Princesses, Cowardly Knights, and a Society Drifting from God

This is one of probably many indicators or how society is becoming disconnected from being rooted in a Judeo-Christian foundation. What is the indicator? A loss of the truly great male hero, and the winning of the female princess. These two things go together. The loss of them is an indication of the loss of a Christian foundation. 

Why? The Christian foundation has a clear hero. The Messiah. The Christ. He is foretold as the hero and all of history revolves around events leading to His revelation. He is clearly a man and His intent is to rescue and redeem His bride. He has a female princess He is coming to save and He saves her by laying down His life for her. His work of redemption results in His brides exultation and rescue. At His second coming (which is yet to happen) He will initiate the great marriage supper where He celebrates the rescue He has accomplished. What has happened as we drift from a society which used to be more socially rooted in Christian values. Well we have moved from the great male hero to the flawed male hero to the ascendancy of the mostly flawless female hero. This is the natural drift of men as they move into a place of more and more overt embrace of the desires of men which are laced with unrecognized rebellion against God. 

As we drift from an anchoring in God we begin to develop as a society a substitute for things which remind us of the great hero of history. We don't want Jesus so we begin the drift by making it negative to want to see a princess get rescued. We want the princess to rescue herself. We want her to be empowered because in a way she represents us and we don't want, to need, to be rescued. We want to be the hero of our own story and so we want to rescue ourselves. It is a tragic drift because saving ourselves is ridiculous and the female hero is usually unbelievable and ridiculous when you really think about it. This is coupled with the flawed male hero. We make the male hero unattractive. He is not chivalrous. He is often corrupt or corruptible. Of course this is the result of wanting to tarnish the image of the hero which echos the greatest hero of Jesus. 

What society wants to assert is how we can save ourselves and we don't need Jesus. But this very simply does not work in the real world. Because we can't ultimately save ourselves, and we do need Jesus. A return to a God focused life would lead our society back to stories of real virtuous heroes who rescue and redeem real princesses and live happily ever after. Because this is our real hope, for our real hero, who rescues us for an eternity with Him.

Speaking of Heroes

Our culture seems to be enamored with heroes. What is it that draws our culture to embrace the exultation of men. Perhaps it is a deep-seated realization that we are all in need. We all know ourselves and because of this we know we are not sufficient. Turning to heroes is a hopeful reach for the expert the one who is capable. The one who is sufficient in the given situation. Yet heroes fail us again and again. Even the heroes on the big screen are shown to have flaws. Yet there is a hero who will never fail us. He is worthy of our attention and He is sufficient for every situation. That hero is the greatest hero ever and His name is Jesus.

 Jesus example is incredible. He is the creator of the world and has all the power in the world at His disposal. Yet in order to save us He became one of us. He was fully human but also fully God and He demonstrated that by what He did. He healed the sick. He made blind men see. He fed 5,000 people with just 5 loaves and 2 fish. He walked on water. He commanded the wind and the waves. He spoke with wisdom and compassion. He forgave sins. He was mostly rejected by us and yet He still loved us. As He was being crucified by us He prayed that God would forgive those of us who were acting against Him. He rose again by His own power and conquered death. After the resurrection He passed through walls and yet ate food. He was seen by over 500 people and literally flew into the sky. He now continues to rule and reign at the right hand of God on high. One day He will return and establish a new heaven and earth. He is the greatest hero ever and worthy of our greatest adoration and devotion.

Even the other great heros of the Bible point us back to Him. My second greatest hero in the Bible is Enoch. What strikes me as important about Enoch is that God recorded not what he did, but who he was in relation to God. As a matter of fact we really don’t know what he did. All we know is he walked with God and did not see death because God took Him. That would be totally awesome to be such a friend of God that He just takes you to be with Him in glory. Like I said, all of the other heroes in the Bible, like Enoch, point us to Jesus. The only reason Enoch could walk with God and have a relationship with God, is because of what Jesus did on the cross. Even though that event was a long way off, when Enoch walked with God, Enoch had to be looking to the forgiveness that could only be found in the savior. That savior was promised in the Garden when God declared that He would send a seed of the woman to crush the serpents head. Enoch walked with God by faith trusting in the coming hero of heros who would save all of those who put their trust in Him. It would be awesome for God to make us more like Jesus so we could walk with God like Enoch. One more reason to pray earnestly for God to grant us the ability to live a God focused life.

Eclipse...of reason

There is a really insightful article on foxnews on the newly released movie Eclipse, called, "Conservative Imprinting In 'Eclipse'?" While the article is insightful in pointing out some trends and counter culture conservative morals in the movie it fails to realize the greater point of those morals. Morality is never just morality for moralities sake. Morality is rooted in something for a reason. Morality in western culture has been derived from the moral law of God as we find it in the Bible. This is one of the reasons why morals and law seem to go hand in hand. We see the opposite all the time because immorality often leads to unlawful acts. What we often miss though is that the goal of morals or the moral law is not to restrict us but to reveal to us what is pleasing to God. This is why David could say that the law of the Lord is perfect reviving the soul...and...the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart (Psalm 19:7-8). The idea of making the soul alive and causing a heart laden with sin to rejoice is not a picture of restriction. David says in the same verses that they make the simple wise and they are so pure they enlighten the eyes. So they give us understanding and they help us to see things more clearly. David sees them as so desirable that he paints them as valuable as gold and sweeter than honey (Psalm 19:10). How many people do you know that feel this way about God's law. The point of God's law is to bring us to God. We will never be more satisfied then when we are satisfied in Him. This is where the morality of Eclipse while it might be a good formal acting out of morals is totally bankrupt. The heros in the movie maintain their morality and virginity but to what end and for what reason. Simply love waits...I guess. But you see if the vampire gets the girl in the end she will be joining the undead who cannot give birth because that would be the opposite of what they are. We also know that vampires are the enemies of God because they hate the cross. So if the heros win and maintain their morals then they will be together forever damned. How is that supposed to be a fulfilling end??? The point of morals is to bring is into greater fellowship with God in the context of all of life. Because of morals all of life becomes an act that leads to worship of God. Maintaining virginity until marriage is so that we come into marriage celebrating and consummating the relationship in a way that mirrors Jesus own fidelity for His bride and His bride's fidelity for Him. The goal of morality is to truly engage in the most awesome thing that anyone has ever conceived of -- namely to stand in the presence of the most awesome being that has ever existed. So join with David and delight in God's law and meditate on it day and night (Psalm 1:2).

Contemplating the incomprehensible

Tonight we had a prayer meeting during which we focused on the massive power and greatness of God. The topic was brought up because of the popularity of super hero movies. Movies with heros that defy the odds have always been popular. The super hero movies of today are about characters that have great powers. We find these powers exciting and intriguing. I think that one of the reasons these powerful beings resonate with us so well is that they represent a longing our flesh has for god like powers. We like to imagine what we might do if we were endowed in such a way (at least I do). But this kind of musing is physical and degrading because it causes one to desire autonomy or power apart from God. The better thing to do is to redirect our thinking to God (Philippians 4:8). After all the characters in the movies are not real anyway. God is though. All the thing that we like in these movies are merely poor shadows and dust falling from the great power and reality of God. Think of His awesome power. He called all that we see into existence with the word of His power. He breathed life into man and made him a living soul. While on earth as God in the flesh Jesus walked on water. He calmed the storm. After the resurrection He ascended into heaven. Think about it the disciples watched Jesus fly away. He really flew. Remember they weren't even sure that He wasn't just doing a demo for them because some angel showed up to tell them that He was gone for now but would come again (Acts 1:11). This is the God that we serve. The real hero. The truly unstoppable one. He will come again with power and great glory (Matthew 24:30). This is why a life focused on our great God and Savior Jesus Christ is the only life worth living.