Batman Begins made me feel how precarious our victories are in this life. The world is balanced on a razor's edge. No matter how many times we save the world, all we're doing is keeping it from slipping. It remains hanging on the edge of destruction. The next battle could very well be the last.
Likewise, the movie made me feel how powerless we are to fight. Though Batman had his superpowers, in the end it was the power of the bad guys that was impressive. Batman's victory was hardly triumphant: it was victory by a hair's breadth. He succeeded in snatching Gotham from total destruction, but only after the bad guys had infiltrated the whole city and caused a huge amount of damage. Except for the fact that it was a Batman movie, which meant that he had to come out on top, there was no sense of certainty that he would prevail in this battle, nor any surety of his victory in the future. The bad guys knew his tricks (in fact they taught him most of his tricks); and as Lieutenant Gordon said at the end, what is to stop our enemies from matching power with power? You start using semi-automatics; they get automatics. You start flying around in a bulletproof suit; they pull out the armor-piercing rounds. There are more of them. They hold the cards. (Sometimes literally.)
That is indeed our position in this world's war. We face an evil of such immense power that not one of us can hope to defeat it. Our enemy is far beyond our strength. As Luther wrote, many years ago,
Still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;No matter how fiercely we fight, our foes will always be fiercer. No matter what weapons we can find to throw at them, they will always be a step ahead of us. No matter how wise and careful our plans, their cunning and malice will always be stronger. We are like ants fighting dragons. They hold all the cards.
His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate:
On earth is not his equal.
Except one. And that one is the trump card. We have a Messiah: a Savior who cannot be defeated. He cannot be defeated because he was already defeated once, and came back again. His power, the power of resurrection from death, is greater than any power of the enemies that beset us. And that power lives in us and works in the world (1 John 4:4).
Yet still we see darkness closing in around us. Evil is an ever-encroaching flood, and the dark waters of sin and death seem to be only just kept at bay by an ever-dwindling number of fighters. Our victories all seem precarious. No matter how often we drag the world back from the brink of destruction, it keeps slipping. We cannot trust ourselves to win the next battle. We can't trust ourselves to protect the things or the people we love. We can't even trust ourselves to keep fighting. But even in such conditions, we have a hope to hold on to.
No matter how dark the world grows, and no matter how few our numbers, our Messiah will never give up on us. Gotham was so depraved that Ra's Al Ghul thought the city was past hope and condemned it to destruction. Bruce Wayne, however, looked at the few in the city who were still fighting—Rachel, Mr. Fox, Sergeant Gordon—and saw them as a sign of hope for Gotham's redemption. Our God likewise looked at the corruption of Sodom and Gomorrah, and said that if it were only for the sake of ten righteous people, the cities should be spared. What's more, our Messiah has promised to protect his own. He hasn't lost a man yet (John 6:39).
That is our hope. Not in our fighting, but in the one who fights for us: in a Messiah who is both merciful and powerful to save. So long as he fights with us, we cannot be defeated. Darkness may prevail for a time, but we know that good will defeat evil in the end. But how do we join the fight? And how do we spread our hope?
One way is by prayer. Our direct plea to God, and his direct action in the world, are powerful forces to work good. Another way is by living righteous lives. Proverbs 28:4 says that to obey the law is to fight the wicked. Our daily perseverance in righteousness—being honest with friends, being faithful to spouses, having patience with an over-talkative co-worker, not cheating when it would be easy to do so, even simply fighting the chaos in the hall closet—all of those ordinary, everyday deeds are really indispensable in the fight against evil. They are the bricks which build the ramparts of our defense.
Yet another way to fight evil is with stories. I know, I know. "Stories?" you say. "Alongside prayer and righteousness? That's a bit of a stretch." Not at all. It is through stories that people make sense of the world. Our stories tell us the shape of the war going on around us. The stories we believe make us either hope or despair, love or hate, fight or flee. Stories have the power to tell us that redemption is possible, that evil is conquerable, that the fight is worth fighting. This is what Chesterton meant when he said that "fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
We need stories to show us the truth, for they alone have that power. Yeats once said that "man can embody truth but he cannot know it." He meant that truth is in the parable rather than the precept. Ideas can be true—or rather, accurate—up to a point. Philosophy can tell us that there is a fight between good and evil. Morality can tell us which one ought to win. Religion can even tell us who are the contestants. But only a story can tell us how the fight turns out.
That ability to embody the truth gives stories great power. But—to mix fandoms—with great power comes great responsibility. Here Batman Begins both succeeded and failed. It did indeed show Batman winning in the end. But the world in which he won was a world ruled by the bad guys, a world in which the good guys were vigilantes waging a hopeless war on evil. That's only half the story. We live in a dark world, but we have the promise of final victory. That is why, though the movie was great on many levels, it was ultimately unsettling: because the story it leaves untold is as great as the one it tells.
Excellent insights. I would add that the suffering and the evils in the world have been foretold. I recently heard a sermon that struck me because the preacher made this point (in more or less words): As Christians, we are constantly trying to make the world a better place, but that's not our primary calling. Our primary calling is to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. Maybe we should spend more time trying to bring that good news of final victory to the broken people instead of trying to heal this broken world.
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, did you see the Dark Knight?
I don't know if I'm comfortable with that idea. Our primary mission is to spread the gospel, but isn't that gospel the good news of victory *now* and not just in future? In some sense (I don't know exactly what) the victory is already won. Perhaps what I'm getting at is that the "good news of final victory" should encourage us in "trying to heal this broken world," because the good news means that the world *can* be healed.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I think that Christianity is too often turned into merely a social doctrine, i.e. all humanitarian philanthropy and no divine message. So I don't know quite where I fall on this question. What *is* our primary calling?
No, I haven't seen The Dark Knight yet. I'd like to see it, but my brothers say it is darker still, so I approach it with some trepidation.
If our primary calling is to share the good news of the gospel, and we act and conduct ourselves as if this is so, aren't we then acting in ways that will heal this broken world?
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