Friday, August 9, 2013

After Earth - A story of sacrifice

Did you watch the movie "After Earth"? I was excited to see that the Dove movie review had given this PG movie a family friendly rating. I was not so surprised that many other movie reviewers deemed the movie as another failure and a flop for M. Night Shyamalan. But I thought it was great...you just have to go a little deep.

I won't share the movie's whole plot with you but looking at it through spiritual eyes...it's a lot about sacrifice. As I was watching it, my heart kept whispering, "Doesn't that remind you of Jesus? He was a man of sacrifice." 

*Spoiler Alert*
Over and over again, there was a theme of one willing to sacrifice themselves for another.  General Cypher Raige (Will Smith) was willing to die for his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) when he realized his son wouldn't have enough oxygen to complete his mission and get back to him, Kitai's sister, Senshi (ZoĆ« Kravitz) sacrifices her life to save her brother, and Kitai risks his life to save is father. At one point in the movie, Kitai even risks his life to save a condor's babies from tigers. In turn, later in the movie the female condor sacrifices her own life to save Katai by covering him with her wings & body during the nightly thermal freeze. It's actually that last instant that moved me to tears in the theater. 

Because of the way the film was shot, the audience knows that Katai is about to freeze to death but as he is passing in and out of consciousnesses, something begins to pull him to safety and seeing through his eyes when he regains his senses for a bit, we see something is covering him. In the morning when he awakes, we realize that the female bird has covered him to keep him warm and in turn died during the night. In that instant, emotions of sacrifice and this scripture flooded my mind, 

'He will cover you with his feathers.
    He will shelter you with his wings.
    His faithful promises are your armor and protection.' ~ Psalm 91:4 NLT

Even as I write, tears well up in my eyes at the reminder that Jesus' sacrificed himself by letting me come under the shelter of his wings and he was willing to die the death I should have died...just as the bird and Senshi died the death Kitai should have died. Christ's protection covers me even now from the cold things of this life. He longs to wrap us up in his wings and provide us warmth, safety, hope and true life! I pray this reminder brings you comfort too. 




** PS - I've missed blogging! Hopefully, my schedule will begin allowing me to blog more often again. :)