One of the most entertaining movies of my teenage years was the film The Matrix. It was a mind bending, visually interesting action movie like I had never seen. There was a lot in that movie that you needed to suspend your disbelief to accept, but one particular detail bothered me. Near the end, the hero (spoiler alert) is killed by the bad guy. Neo, the hero, is plugged into The Matrix and he clearly dies as his heart monitor flatlines and the rest of the good guys look on in disbelief. However, as he is dead laying on a table in the real world, the love interest confesses her love for him and guess what happens? Well, he awakens, comes back to life, and proceeds to defeat the bad guy and save everybody. Now, I can accept a lot of things in a fictional movie, but this did not sit right with me. Love resurrected someone? There was no explanation in the film for how he miraculously came back to life.
Hollywood has a profound impact on our thinking. Whether we admit it or not, Hollywood movies are pushing an ideology. They are promoting a certain worldview. And we spend hours upon hours each week ingesting these worldviews put out by Hollywood motion pictures. As the years have passed since The Matrix, I have noticed a trend popping up more and more in big Hollywood blockbusters. The trend is for the hero to die and to be resurrected. It is not enough for him to be close to death, he must actually die and return. How common is this you ask? Just going off the top of my head I can think of the following major characters who experienced a resurrection-type experience: E.T., the Crow, Catwoman in Batman Returns, Harry Potter, Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Superman in the DC Comics movies, Black Panther the Avenger, Optimus Prime and Megatron of Transformers, Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings, and probably many others I am missing. One resurrection doesn’t seem to be enough in both the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Transformers franchises as they have two.
Why is this becoming more and more common in big Hollywood stories? I mean, these are not obscure films no one has seen, these are the biggest blockbusters. What is Hollywood trying to tell us? I have a theory. My theory is: to have us think resurrection is common. To make it normal, to make it ordinary, to make it just another story detail. But why would Hollywood seek to do that? Because the single most fantastic reality of Christianity is the resurrection of Christ. Here in April we celebrate the astounding reality that Christ rose from the grave. And not only rose from the grave by some outside power, but that He actually rose Himself from the grave (John 10:18)!
My theory is proven in the movie Justice League where the heroes are discussing bringing Superman back from the dead. Now, he is clearly dead, they had a funeral and buried his body in a casket in the ground. But as they discuss the positives/negatives of resurrecting him (which is totally possible in their mind), the hero Aquaman says, “I don’t know about this, you lose something when you die.” What?! Yes, you lose everything when you die! It’s over! But, his statement implies a normalcy for resurrection itself, just an abnormal effect on those resurrected. As if he is saying, “Look at all the other resurrected people, they don’t come back the same.” You can also look at the Avengers movies where in the last film the Avengers were able to resurrect literally half of all life in the universe! Talk about resurrection being common, 1 in every 2 people would have experienced it themselves.
You see, we know Hollywood is not pro-Christian anything, so if Satan can make resurrection commonplace and normal in the minds of people, then when we tell them about the glorious resurrection of Christ, they will think it is no big deal because they have seen it dozens of times!
Does my theory hold water in the real world? Well, I remember talking to a young man about the gospel. When I told him about the resurrection of Jesus, his response almost caused me to fall out of my chair. He said, “That’s no big deal, people rise from the dead all the time.” I was so shocked to hear that I told him, “You’re right, let’s go down to Shafter cemetery and ask them how many resurrections they have seen this week…this month…this year.” Could it be, seeing the normalcy of resurrection over and over again on the big screen had caused him to be less than impressed that some guy named Jesus rose from the dead? Oh Jesus rose from the dead? You mean just like Harry Potter and Optimus Prime did, big deal.
We must continue to proclaim and announce the astounding reality that Jesus Christ is risen from the grave. That when the disciples heard He had risen, they would NOT believe it until He appeared to them. And, that when they saw Him they were AFRAID (Matt 28:10). Even when the angel told the women that He was risen, they were trembling, astonished, and fearful (Mark 16:8).
May this be our perspective on the resurrection. May we continually be blown away by the reality that He is risen. May it even cause us to fear, because we see with unveiled eyes who Jesus Christ really is. That He is very different than Jack Sparrow or Gandalf.
~ Pastor Mark Scialabba