October 14th, 2013|| "Wolverine," A review & prayerful questions more than Commentary

What was an interesting conversation with my text study peer a couple of months back was how a lot of these "action/ super hero" type films are "seeking..., ..."  In an age where the secular and intellectual idolatry are currently reigning, there also reigns spiritual starvation in some form or another.

In the interim of serving in church yesterday & coming back for our church's Ocktoberfest parish fundraiser, we decided to go to the dollar theatre in Joliet.  They had alot of children's movies and the latest Xmen series film around Wolverine.

I'm not usually an action/ violent battle, etc type of movie goer but I have liked the Xmen flicks.  The film to which you see a good trailer above, begins with Wolverine's first "save."  He is in WWII Japan and the nuclear bombs are being dropped...  A Japanese soldier is frozen in shear terror and disbelief while the explosion is beginning to travel.  His soldier peers kill themselves by the sword but Wolverine or "Logan" helps to convince the young terrified soldier to jump into a tunnel.  They barely make it into the well/ tunnel where Wolverine/Logan shields the young man with a small metal lid and himself.  He takes on the horrendous brunt of the grazing fires.  The scene closes with him in silence burnt and slowly healing all his wounds.  He basically saved this man's life.

There are some other characteristics that are allusive to "seeking" as well throughout the film from him being both a self-healer and healer, to being eternal and never changing...  Hollywood weaves a love story in there of course with Logan's torment of accidentally killing the woman he loved.  She has ghostly hauntings of him throughout the film either as moments of conscious contemplation or of pleading with him to surrender his life.  Are we seeing some clear motives developing here?  I certainly did!

One of the greatest nearly "cruciform" moments of our "hero" in action is when he is near the location to where he will be rescuing the daughter of the Japanese man he saved all those years ago.  He is running down a snow covered path trying to dodge these "Ninja" marksmen arrows till in a weakened state, with arms outstretched and dozens of arrows impaling his back he falls over.

There are a dozen or so more little references strung throughout the film which frankly by the end of the movie I really wondered if my friend's hypothesis was right?  Is the surrounding secular culture seeking to find a "messiah?"  They don't want to buy into the story of our faith but they will spend inordinate amounts of energy creatively constructing these surreal heroes that "heal, save, and resurrect."  Is it because realizing God's GRACE and true presence in the world is too frightening or uncontrollable for these people to want to deal with?

When we can spend our energies and truly begin to focus outward beyond the Old Nature and the Un-Holy Trinity of I, Me, Mine... perhaps those who are spiritually starving, seeking for the Messiah will find the only true God: Jesus Christ in our midst.  I confess I enjoyed this film but it has left me praying for our discipling efforts to become more "real" outwardly to the secularized, self-absorbed world.  We need to take hold of the reigns to those seemingly uncomfortable words:  Witness, Prophetic, Proclamation, Martyrdom and Disciple(!) holistically into our hearts and LIVE!

God Bless Your Mondays,
Nicole Collins