Christmas 2008

One of the top grossing movies of the last two weeks is The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves as a humanoid alien visiting earth. He claims to be a friend of the earth, but is he really friend or foe? Is mankind worth saving?

If you haven’t seen this movie, chances are you’ve seen or read something like it. What about the Star Wars franchise, or 2001 A Space Odyssey. How about the Men in Black movies, Independence Day, or the beloved ET. Or on television: The X-Files or 3rd Rock from the Sun TV series. I could go on and on; It’s rare that a year goes by without a science fiction movie coming out. And who hasn’t heard about Orson Wells’ radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds—it was so realistic that those who hadn’t heard the disclaimer believed they were really under attack by Martians!

Mankind has long been fascinated by the possibility of life beyond earth. Science fiction literature and films serve not only to entertain, but to address our questions, hopes and fears. . . [1]

The hopes and fears of all the years . . . are found in science fiction. Our hopes and fears are found in the stories we tell, in the books we read, in the movies we watch. And sometimes through stories of aliens and UFOs our hearts cry out.

In these types of stories there are two basic themes. The first is that the aliens are hostile, sophisticated, and set on destroying the earth through force and deception—and sometimes they find willing humans who commit treason in order to assist the evil aliens, hoping that they will be saved, that they will cut a deal with the invaders. Or sometimes humans are taken over—they’ve been taken over from the inside and are enemy agents. Did you see any of the Alien movies, where humans are cocoons for the development of horrible alien creatures? And in these most frightening movies there’s a hero, someone who has learned the truth of impending destruction, and the people won’t take them seriously.

Then there’s another theme, a more optimistic story. Aliens are still sophisticated and powerful beings, superior both morally and spiritually. They are masters of technology who have visited us before, to help us and to guide us, to intervene in human history—and they are back to reveal themselves and save us—from ourselves, whether it’s ecological disaster or global warfare and destruction. Sometimes these superior aliens will mate with humans to create a superior race, which will change the course of history and give us hope.

Perhaps these stories are so popular because they speak to our hearts. We know in our innermost hearts that there is a dark and sinister force in the world, one that we don’t understand and usually underestimate. When will we pay attention to the real evil in the world, the real damage being done? It’s not hard to believe that our world is threatened by forces beyond our control, whether global warming or global warfare, and the only answer is some kind of dramatic action. We know, too, that science, technology, and commerce will not solve our problems. We need help. Remember Princess Lea in Star Wars: “Help us, Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope.”

The hopeful story lends us to consider that there is a positive force in the universe, more powerful than human beings, a force for good, a force which can help and guide us, a force which can save us from destruction, save us from ourselves. We know we need new blood, new hearts, new lives. We need rescued on a moral and spiritual level—we need to be transformed and renewed and redeemed. If there is a benevolent force, a superior race, if this is true, then there is hope.

And so to a world that presents it’s hopes and fears in medium of alien invasion and alien salvation comes the good news of Jesus Christ.

Because of course, we were right. There is a sinister force at work in the world and in us, consuming us from the inside out, a force which must be recognized and named. And that is the role of the prophets.

And of course we were right. There is a benevolent and superior force guiding history, a force which wants to be known, to be revealed. This force wants to have intimate communion with the human race and bring forth a new race, with renewed and transformed powers, so that we can be saved. There is a force that says without a doubt, mankind is worth saving.

And so God, the benevolent and superior force at work in the world, God who is far bigger and better than the human race which threatens to destroy itself, chose to reveal himself. He took on the form and shape and even the limitations of a human. The king of the universe shed his powers and clothed himself with humanity. The one through him all things were made, made himself like us. While his conception was something akin to planting an alien and superior seed in a human mother, his birth was of the ordinary human kind, born in the far corners of the world, born in the most humble of places. And because he was an alien, because he was not completely of this world, he helped us by being born and living and dying like one of us. And because he was not entirely one of us, by his death, he conquered death and gave us life, gave us his life-giving Spirit. The Spirit of the one who is God from God, light from light, true God from true God, this Spirit touches and transforms our hearts, from the inside. We are joined with him, and a new race is formed, a new humanity, made new, re-created, from the inside out.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

We know, don’t we, that we need help, and that all the best of human science and technology aren’t getting it done. The threats are real enough, but what we need is a Savior—and unto us a child is born, a Savior, Christ the Lord. He will be named Jesus—Yeshua—which means God is salvation. We need salvation, and in the birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus, we are saved. All we have to do is believe in him—to trust that He is who he says he is, and to surrender our lives to him who is able to do far more than we can ask or imagine.

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in a stable in Bethlehem. They are met in Jesus. And in our Christmas celebration of Holy Communion, we share in his life. He lives in us and we in him, and we are a new race with new hearts—beings who are transformed from the inside out, a now alien people who are fit to live forever with Him, for all eternity, above and beyond the stars.


Special acknowledgments to the Rev Dr. Leander Harding.



[1] http://www.allmovieportal.com/m/2008_The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still_about_the_movie.html