Tilting at Dinosaurs

As a small child, I enjoyed watching dinosaur movies with my older brother. He had a great deal of scientific knowledge on the subject of dinosaurs and their fossils, and there was something about listening to his erudite juvenile commentary that made the black and white movies we watched, with their jerking model monsters and painted sets, more thrilling and real.

Today's sci-fi films are even more believable, thanks to truly incredible special effects such as digital animation and animatronics to create realistic monsters (or would a more politically correct term be "alternative species"?).

Ultimately, however, what draws us as the audience into these fictional landscapes, whether of dinosaurs or androids, is not the realism of the monsters. It is the human challenges posed for the dramatis personae. And this is why a movie about dinosaurs can seem relevant and gripping. It’s not about T. Rex, it's about us.

Sci-fi films provide us with a fresh canvas on which to wrestle with the issues of being human and finding meaning for our lives. The extreme landscapes of dinosaurs and volcanoes, or aliens and spaceships, just serve to throw into stark relief the age-old questions that face humanity.

The hapless humans who find themselves transported to a landscape featuring [insert monster here] always have the same goal: to conquer the challenges and survive while maintaining their higher values.

For the sake of the drama, the dinosaurs/monsters appear to have anthropomorphic personalities – they're either angry, friendly, dopey, or calculatingly evil (not to mention always hungry). The human characters are usually a mix of flawed leaders, self-interested villains, entrepreneurs, skeptics, and followers, all of whom need a "savior" to show them how to get back to the present, or at least create a better status quo.

And who is that savior? In the movies, sometimes it is a person (also known as "the good guy") who becomes a gifted leader who can rally the masses and lead them to safety. Sometimes it is God Himself appearing in the form of a miraculous event, such as a landslide that kills the last of the dinosaurs mid-pursuit. This latter case is known as deus ex machina, a reference from classical Greek theater, meaning that a god-like intervention is required to save the people from a hopeless situation.

Hmm, when you look at a movie from that standpoint, how very like it is to everyday life! Even though in a fictional work the deus ex machina device tends to strain one’s belief in the plot, miracles happen all the time in real life. As Christians we would call it grace. And what about the savior figure? Do we not already know who he is in our lives?

Throughout modern history, followers of Christ have bravely faced landscapes every bit as ferocious as prehistoric islands crammed with ravenous alternative species. They have proclaimed the Truth in hostile religious climates when to do so meant martyrdom. They have witnessed and held meetings in secret while living under oppressive political regimes. They have clung to the teachings of the Bible when permissive societies mocked and marginalized them. And they have always succeeded in protecting the faith and passing it on to future generations.

As Christians, we already know who our Savior is, and we have God's grace helping us through every challenge that arises. That should give us courage when the world we inhabit seems hostile and alien. As Saint Paul said, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)

Dinosaurs on your path? Be not afraid. Your battle is already won.


© 2005 by Cynthia Edwards. All rights reserved.

Let every heart prepare Him room

By Cynthia Edwards 
An essay in the book Creative Spirit Musings

There are people in my neighborhood who spend thousands of dollars every year turning their properties into Christmas wonderlands, both inside and out, and providing their near and dear ones with all the gifts their hearts desire.

They have kicked Christmas up a notch since the first one, two thousand years ago.

The original Christmas story tells us about the struggles of a man named Joseph and his heavily pregnant wife, Mary, who were obliged to travel from their home in Nazareth to the backwater village of Bethlehem.

They were participating in a census of Roman-controlled lands ordered by the Emperor Augustus. In those days, people had to travel to their father’s place of birth to be counted, and foot and mule travel were the only modes of transportation that would have been available to the average person.

Any woman who has been nine months pregnant will understand how physically difficult this journey must have been for Mary and her concerned, and probably much older, husband.

In the little town of Bethlehem, there was much confusion and congestion. So many other people were arriving at the same time, Joseph and Mary could not find an inn with a spare room. The best they could get was permission to bed down in a stable, situated in a cave, sheltering with beasts such as oxen and donkeys. Mary went into labor that night, perhaps brought on by the exertions of travel, and Jesus was born.

Having no crib, Mary placed her baby in a manger. In case you are not sure what a manger is, it is the trough where feed for livestock is placed. Imagine the muck. The reek. The danger from cattle kicking out petulantly. Imagine the parents’ desperate desire to protect their fragile newborn – and their own discomfort in the cave.

Meanwhile, in the fields surrounding Bethlehem, supernatural events were occurring. Shepherds saw visions of angels joyously proclaiming the birth of the Savior. Somewhere in the middle distance a camel caravan, carrying three wealthy and educated seekers with their retinues, was approaching Bethlehem in stately fashion, in search of this very obscure Baby. They were guided by a supernova that miraculously lingered in the skies above the stable.

The paradox of the story is amazing. So amazing, we lovingly recreate it every Christmas in our churches and homes, in living tableaux or in crèche scenes with figurines and scenery. The poverty of Christ’s birth is transfigured by our understanding of the eternal significance of the event.

In the year 1223, Saint Francis of Assisi became the first person to recreate the crèche scene to celebrate our Lord’s day of birth. Francis had seen the Cave of the Nativity in his travels to the Holy Land, and his theatrical imagination, coupled with his passionate love for Christ, inspired him to duplicate the scene in the steep hills above Greccio in central Italy. He intended to “set before our bodily eyes in some way the inconveniences of [Christ’s] infant needs, how he lay in the manger, how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he lay upon the hay where he had been placed.”

All of the townspeople of Greccio were invited to celebrate Mass at this ‘new Bethlehem,’ but they were not told of what preparations were being made. A thousand people – shepherds and wise men among them – climbed the hills that Christmas eve, carrying lanterns and torches, lighting up the night. When they finally made their way to the clearing and beheld the scene, their hearts were as deeply touched as if God were actually made manifest before them. One can almost hear the angels singing joyfully, as of old.

The paradox continues on today. In poverty and humility of spirit we can find the finest riches of Heaven. This Christmas, amid the shopping, decorating, and celebrating, I hope we will all make time to contemplate the mystery and glory of Christ’s birth. The King of Heaven was born in a cave because there was no room in the inn. Let us not make the mistake of pushing Jesus out of our Christmas celebration because there is no room for Him in our hearts.

Joy to the world! The Lord is come 
Let earth receive her king 
Let every heart Prepare him room 
And heaven and nature sing! 
-- Isaac Watts, 1719 

© 2004 by Cynthia Edwards. All rights reserved.

Why?

We live in an age of spiritual seeking. We seek God within ourselves; we seek him in the things of the earth and in the things that we make. We try to draw his attention and gain His favor by a myriad practices, both time-honored and new.

Perhaps what we forget is that God sought us first, and has been calling our name with a longing that makes the angels weep and the universe sigh and tremble. He pours out the extravagance of His love for us all the time. He has given us a planet home which is capable of providing beauty, wealth, and delights to a degree that fills us to satiety. He has given us more stars than we could ever count; a universe vaster than our minds could ever grasp. He has given us brothers and sisters in a multitude greater than we could ever embrace.

Everywhere we look there is limitless evidence of the love of God and His desire for us. So why do we continue to reach out blindly for the Goodness we know is there? Why does God seem elusive in the midst of all the splendor we can easily see?

The answer lies in a tragedy of cosmic proportions, which happened long ago. The tragedy of Creation is the fall of man. The heart and will of God's first children, our original ancestors, were perverted by a fallen angel, Lucifer, now called Satan. This event is known as the fall of man. As a result all people are born in bondage to Lucifer, who was cast down from heaven for rebelling against God and teaching His children to do the same. The history of man consists first and foremost of God's effort to release His beloved children from the stronghold of Satan.

Certainly, God is stronger than Satan. However, curiously, we are willing prisoners. Because we inherit Satan's rebellious nature, humans are divided in loyalty. Among us are saints and monsters, geniuses and dullards, heroes and cowards. No wonder people down the centuries have questioned what kind of God would make up such a bizarre and incomprehensible race! The real question is -- what kind of demon would sow such evil seed amid the goodness of original creation?

Enter the need for a Messiah. God prepared one small sector of humanity, the Jews, with centuries of revelations, prophesies, and corrections, to receive the Messiah - the son of God who comes to give new life and freedom to our imprisoned souls. The Messiah's work is not simple, however, as Satan's claim on humanity must be settled before he will allow salvation to take place. Why? We can only be saved when we repudiate our link to Satan and submit ourselves to God's authority. This is why God's omnipotence seems limited during these fallen times. God has decided not to violate our free will because to do so would demote us from being His children to being mere puppets. So you see, a lot depends on our desire to be saved.

The Messiah's name was Jesus. Jesus was the son of God and he performed many miracles. The greatest miracle he performed was the forgiveness of sins which allowed those who believed in him to be reconciled with the purity, love, and truth of God. Jesus took all the sins of humanity on himself - he who was without sin - when he went to the cross. His death ransomed all humanity from Satan. We can only guess at God's pain as He watched the suffering and rejection of the only person in history who perfectly embodied and reflected God's nature. I tremble to imagine it.

Three days after the crucifixion, Jesus began to be seen by his friends and disciples. His body was so real, his wounds could be touched and he even ate with them. They were utterly amazed that this man, who had performed miracles during his life, had been crucified and had died, actually lived again. Jesus continued teaching them for forty days, and then he was suddenly "taken up" into the sky. The apparitions ceased.

The apostles understood from this that life is eternal and that Jesus had overcome the finality of the grave on our behalf. Soon afterwards the apostles received the Holy Spirit (with "a sound like the blowing of a violent wind") in a phenomenal event known as Pentecost. This event changed their lives forever, and they traveled the known world preaching the gospel of the risen Christ. A great mystery of Christianity is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which occurs at the moment we confess that Jesus is Lord.

Jesus' sacrifice is sufficient to cover our sins, but each of us must fulfill a portion of personal responsibility to receive the benefits of salvation. We must believe in Jesus. Having faith in him is the incredibly simple condition given to us to fulfill. Without this act of will, we are not saved. With it, we become what Jesus calls "born again" in the spirit of God. (Of course, being born again only means we have a new beginning - the next step is to spend our lives growing up into spiritual maturity. Salvation is a free gift, but we have to work diligently to stay rooted in goodness. See John 15.)

Oh, what a gift of cosmic magnitude! Through Jesus we are reunited with the God who has been calling our name with such passion and longing. We fulfill our destiny through faith in Christ. No wonder the story of Jesus is called the Gospel - it means Good News!

Jesus tells us:

• I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.
• My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
• I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.

God bless you!