Tonight I watched Legend of the Guardians, you know, the movie with the animated fighting owls. It was actually pretty good. It made me want to read the books. It also had some interesting story lines in it and eternal truths that shone through. One of those was about the harsh realities of war. One quote stood out for me, it was from one of the old warriors, the hero in an old legend, who spoke about the realities of fighting in battle:
“It’s not glorious, it’s not beautiful, it’s not even heroic. It’s merely doing what’s right and doing it again and again. Even if one day you end up looking like this” (referring to his mangled self).
That struck a cord with me. Life is a battle. The war analogy is not an overstatement, it’s very appropriate for us all. We are in a world at war. Good versus evil. The Apostle Paul said:
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
If you don’t realize that we’re at war – life doesn’t make a lot of sense (to paraphrase John Eldredge from the book Waking the Dead). Haven’t you noticed that it seems like there is an awful lot of opposition in our lives? Has it ever occurred to you that we are opposed by forces unseen? I know I forget this. The Bible talks about how the devil hates humanity because we were made in the image of God. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that someone who hates us is going to attack us? Anyhow – I was struck by the quote from this movie because often times life gets ugly. We don’t always win each battle. There are losses… significant ones. But, it’s not a matter of glory, beauty, or even heroism in battle as much as it is about doing what’s right and doing it again and again.
The other movie I saw this last weekend was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, in fact I thought it was one of the better X-Men movies thus far, although it was a little darker.
One scene that stood out to me was when Logan (Wolverine) is on the run and an elderly couple takes him in for the night. You have to understand the situation… He has just escaped from a military facility where they have been doing excruciatingly painful experiments on him. He also just recently learned that his girlfriend was murdered, and that the same people behind it planned on killing him too. He escapes but he’s on the run, he’s exhausted, naked, cold, and all alone. That’s when Travis Hudson and his wife allow him to stay the night while feeding him and giving him clothing.
Logan is incredibly conflicted. Throughout the movie you see that he doesn’t want to be hurt or see others hurt, yet he struggles with past traumas and the violence and anger that results from these. Often these arise out of the need for survival. Travis Hudson at one point asks Logan about his future plans and (sensing that he’s in some real trouble) tells him that he has always has a choice in life. Logan argues and says his choice got taken away. The elderly Hudson responds immediately by saying, that’s “bull shit.” You always have a choice.
This really sticks out for me because I feel like so often Satan feeds us that lie… the lie that we don’t have a choice. That we are a slave to our weaknesses, to our sins, to our failures. And I believe the appropriate response to that lie is to call it what it is: a bunch of bull. The blood of Jesus has not only forgiven us of our sins, but it has freed us from the dominion of the power of darkness. So when we hear that voice that whispers that we are nothing but failures we should rebuke it and bring the cross against it in Jesus’ name.
The old man then proceeds to give Logan his dead son’s leather jacket and he gives Logan the keys to his motorcycle. It may not seem like much but I thought this scene was a powerful example of a male father figure initiating a boy (although Logan is hardly young at this point).
So there you have it… a few eternal truths from a couple of movies…written and produced by folks who probably aren’t believers in Christ. But truth doesn’t hide, I’ve found that in most stories, myths, and tales there is an element of truth that shines through. And there’s no better way to learn than in the form of story or parables.