The Propitiation of a Pirate
In the new Pirates of the Carribbean movie, there is a scene in which Johnny Depp's character has been told he must, in 3 days, find 100 "souls" to take his place on a cursed ship crew or spend eternity there himself. The comedic part comes when he is asked if he can live with himself knowing that he sentenced 100 people to this damnation of sorts. He thought for a moment and then shrugged and said "Yes."
We laugh at this because he is portrayed throughout as the pirate who is the epitome of all that we pretend to despise. He is vile, manipulative, sexually crude, self-centered, and dishonest. We laugh because he thinks for a moment before responding, and there is the hope for a brief moment that he will make the decent decision. We laugh because we knew really wouldn't. In the end, he is so self-centered that he would rather give this punishment to 100 others when it is clear that he is the one who deserves it.
He is as I am.
When we were watching the movie, at this particular point, I leaned over and tried to whisper something to Micah to indicate that I had a profound thought on the subject, but the movie went on, so I told him we'd talk about it later.
Now I will "express opinions or judgments in a dogmatic way. " I suppose it bothered me to laugh at his flippant attitude toward the whole scenario, mainly because I see this attitude in myself. God gave the punishment I deserve to Christ, who never did anything to deserve it, and my response is so often "yeah, I can live with that." I spend a lot of time giving thought to things that are so trivial, and treat my debt being paid as something that "just happened" and I'm OK with it.
Obviously the analogy falls apart very quickly, but I suspect that seeing Captain Jack Sparrow flagrantly display the sins that I hide so well brought these thoughts to mind.
As I throw around impressive theological terms, I hope to remember that substitution means someone else received the punishment I deserved, and that atonement required death to satisfy wrathful perfection. These are a very sobering combination.
In the new Pirates of the Carribbean movie, there is a scene in which Johnny Depp's character has been told he must, in 3 days, find 100 "souls" to take his place on a cursed ship crew or spend eternity there himself. The comedic part comes when he is asked if he can live with himself knowing that he sentenced 100 people to this damnation of sorts. He thought for a moment and then shrugged and said "Yes."
We laugh at this because he is portrayed throughout as the pirate who is the epitome of all that we pretend to despise. He is vile, manipulative, sexually crude, self-centered, and dishonest. We laugh because he thinks for a moment before responding, and there is the hope for a brief moment that he will make the decent decision. We laugh because we knew really wouldn't. In the end, he is so self-centered that he would rather give this punishment to 100 others when it is clear that he is the one who deserves it.
He is as I am.
When we were watching the movie, at this particular point, I leaned over and tried to whisper something to Micah to indicate that I had a profound thought on the subject, but the movie went on, so I told him we'd talk about it later.
Now I will "express opinions or judgments in a dogmatic way. " I suppose it bothered me to laugh at his flippant attitude toward the whole scenario, mainly because I see this attitude in myself. God gave the punishment I deserve to Christ, who never did anything to deserve it, and my response is so often "yeah, I can live with that." I spend a lot of time giving thought to things that are so trivial, and treat my debt being paid as something that "just happened" and I'm OK with it.
Obviously the analogy falls apart very quickly, but I suspect that seeing Captain Jack Sparrow flagrantly display the sins that I hide so well brought these thoughts to mind.
As I throw around impressive theological terms, I hope to remember that substitution means someone else received the punishment I deserved, and that atonement required death to satisfy wrathful perfection. These are a very sobering combination.
posted by Nathan at 12:19 PM
4 Comments:
There's what I've got, as the song says "my thoughts are open season" so fire away. I'm thinking about a part II to this posting when I can examine the other side of this equation (joy in salvation) but that will have to come at a time when I've slept a bit more.
I look forward to part two....you're right about Jack being "in your face" about everything that we should hate about ourselves...to often I don't hate my sin enough. The reality is we/I don't see the true blessing of Salvation....THAT is the Tragedy. Thank you for taking time to remind us.
Thanks for the reminder...isn't it funny how sometimes we have to have our hearts shown to us as something alien to realize how discusting they are. Like David and...was it Nathaniel the prophet? "You are the man" Realizing that--right after you've hated the behavior of the man is one of the worst feelings in the world...but entirely necessary in order for us to learn to hate our sin.
Well put, my friend.
Nathan was the OT prophet, Nathaniel was Jesus' disciple.
Thanks for the thoughts.
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