Monday, January 25, 2010

Of Terminators and Jedi Knights

DISCLAIMER: The Terminator series of films are popular, but violent movies also containing vulgar language, and brief nudity, and are not endorsed for family viewing in any way by the author of this blog.

Today, I have a cold. Having a cold made me think of the Terminator - for no particular reason, except that the Terminator doesn't get colds. Now, if you don't know who the Terminator is, he is this super-cyborg from the future. He looks like a human (which undoubtedly helps keep movie production costs down), but inside, he is a robot. He speaks in an ominous, flat, monotone voice, which is good because he is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who excels at ominous, flat, monotone voices. Anyhow, in the second installment of the Terminator franchise, Schwarzenegger's role is a complete reversal from the first movie, in which he was simply a bad-guy futuristic assassin. In "Judgment Day", his character is still a Terminator, but has been sent back from the future to protect a young boy, rather than assassinate him.

Schwarzenegger's character provides some comic relief in an otherwise violent film as he tries to become more human, first learning how to use crude jargon in his speech, later learning how to smile. As he jokes and plays with the boy he was sent to protect, the boy's mother begins to realize that the Terminator is the only worthy father-figure for her son; one who will never abandon or abuse him, never get sick and die on him, or ever let him down. In the end, the Terminator paints an almost messianic picture, as he is willingly lowered into a pool of molten steel, sacrificing his (life?) for the sake of humanity. As I pondered the idea of the Terminator as a messiah-figure, it dawned on me that the idea of a single savior who alone can rescue humanity from disaster is something we see repeated over and over again in our popular culture: Star Wars has a savior born of a virgin (!) and foretold in prophecy; the Matrix has a main character, who again is the object of prophecy and who rises from the dead (!) to defeat the enemy.

Clearly, humanity longs for a savior we can look to to rescue us from evil, from our failing world, even from ourselves. What a shame it is that we look right past the true savior described by the prophet Isaiah, preferring to invent our own:

(Isaiah 53)
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

11 After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

No CG-enhanced Kung-Fu here; no light-sabers or infrared vision. Just a deliberate act of ultimate sacrifice on the part of a loving God for His people, that ...whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)


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