episode three

karen and i watched star wars: episode three the other week, and it had an intensely spiritual impact on me. let me explain.

first off i'll say that i'm not a big star wars fan. i didn't even know what they were until highschool and didn't watch all three of the originals till college. i thought one and two were pretty cheesy so i wasn't sure what to expect from episode three other than a tying together of the story.

as i had watched one and two, anakin's obvious decline had been bothering me. he started off as such a beautiful boy, so to imagine him becoming the dreadful darth vadar was no fun. when i watched the original three, darth vadar was this hateful character. i just wanted him to die so that right would triumph. episode three tied together the journey from beautiful boy to the dark side, and i found it incredibly disturbing and spiritual.

i have been learning much of late about God's love and have been re-understanding my view of our sinful nature being characterized primarily by a brokenness, a terrible wound that affects us all, resulting in a tendency toward wrong choices. i have been learning to see us through God's eyes, as people that he loves no matter where we are or what we do, and his redemptive action is an action to free a captive people as well as to forgive rebellious children. our rebelliousness is the natural result of our woundedness.

so as i watched anakin's decline i found myself seeing him through the eyes of a loving father rather than of a hateful enemy. i began to understand the evil that he became as the natural result of wrong choices and deceit from the evil one. he didn't become evil overnight. he was drawn toward it by good desires led astray into wrong choices. it was a gradual process until he reached the point of no return. i cannot hate darth vadar any longer, but rather feel remorse and pity for what he became.

as i watched anakin's decline and began to realize that i no longer hated darth vadar, i began to understand in a greater degree how God sees us in our sinfulness - how God sees me in my sinfulness. he does not hate us even when we become so fallen into sin. i began to understand in a much deeper way the love of God for sinful, fallen humanity. i began to understand better how God could love the most sin-twisted soul just as much as he loves the greatest saint. because he sees the whole picture, just as i now see the whole picture for anakin. God knows that we were all supposed to be beautiful. we are all supposed to be good. and he doesn't hate us for our sinfulness, but rather loves us and gives his very life to free us from our bondage.

this is very good news.