Theological Thoughts at a Three-D Film?

Last night my husband and I went to see the movie Wrath of the Titans.

It wasn't bad, I guess. The special effects were very cool. No expense spared there, obviously.

In fact, I guess they spent so much on the special effects that they didn't have any money left over for a decent script. (cue the laugh track)

(images from wikipedia.org)
This was a sequel to Clash of the Titans (2010), which was a remake of Clash of the Titans (1981).

Are you confused yet?

But seriously, folks...

What really struck me during this movie was the portrayal of the god Zeus.

Zeus was played by Liam Neeson and looked extremely godlike through the whole movie.

He looked exactly like what I would expect the real God to look like, if people were going to cast Him in, say, a remake of The Bible, or something.


image from http://rezirb.com

But truthfully, I don't think the REAL God loks anything like this.

What do I think He looks like? Here's a surprise: I DON'T KNOW!

(I John 4:12a "No one has ever seen God." Duh!)

But I do know that whenever we, as humans, try to make an image of God, we mess it up. Badly.

Like the Israelites did in Exodus 32, with that ridiculous golden calf.

Or, in fact, through the ENTIRE Old Testament, when they kept making idols of wood, and stone, and gold, and silver. When NONE of them were real!

And of course, we still do this today, in different ways. Mostly by trying to make our own image of God in the way WE want Him to be.

We want Him to do what we want, and when He doesn't we get mad. We don't like to think that it's actually about His plan, and not our agenda.

Okay. Back to Perseus, Zeus and the Titans.

In the movie, Zeus sadly tells Perseus that since people have stopped believing in the gods and stopped praying to them, it has robbed the gods of their power. Perseus steadfastly refuses to pray anyways, tries to stop the Titans and save everyone by himself, and ends up having to save Zeus from Hades, because poor Zeus is so depressed and drained by everyone's lack of faith in him.

(I know; it's a complicated plot. I had trouble following it myself.)

This struck me as incredibly sad, because I think this is the actual image we have of God sometimes: When we pray, we wake God up and get him to do stuff. For us.

Like He's sitting around waiting for us to imbue Him with power.

Say WHAT?!

That's absolutely ludicrous, isn't it?

Here's a news flash: GOD DOESN'T NEED US! We need Him!

We don't make Him; HE made us!

It's not about our plans; it's about His plan!

Not that we don't pray, of course. We're commanded to pray; that's a whole other subject.

But we don't pray because God NEEDS us to. We do it because WE need to.

And we trust that He hears, and He is always working, remembering Isaiah 55: 8-9:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."

God is SO much bigger than Liam Neeson.

He is so much more our image of Him.

And He is the one in control!