You might have heard about Art imitating life. I have some video clips that an expert in the art-world believes are a representation of modern art.
Let me set the stage. Good vs Evil. Two folks physically fighting a soldier of Evil known as the Sith. The good guys are a master and apprentice, and the apprentice is about to see his master cut down.
But for our purposes, that isn’t the highlight. Catch what happens to the bad guy.
And yes, critic Camille Paglia believes Star Wars to be the greatest work of Art in recent memory.
So you notice the bad guy (Darth Maul) was cut down, literally cut in half.
But was that the end of him?
So even cut in half he survived….
Let’s consider the Jedi for a moment…
Romans 5:7 (NASB)
For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.
The Jedi seem to fulfill what we see in Romans. We see them in the movies willing to put themselves in harm's way and willing to die to protect others. The Sith, on the other hand, are quite different. Let’s see one more clip about the Sith clinging to life.
Again, an injury that should kill him, and yet...
He clings to life in a nightmare suit.
The Sith code is:
The Sith have no hope for the future. To them now is all there is, so they cling to their present life with everything they have.
Like the Jedi, we, on the other hand, do have hope in the future:
1 Peter 1:3-4 (NASB)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you
1 Corinthians 2:9b (NIV)
What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love him
So the original six Star Wars movies can be summed up as the conflict between two groups: one with no hope in the future, so they do whatever they can to extend their life by accumulating power and control, and the other that is secure in their hope of a future. That hope frees them to help everyone they can.
That hope is an echo of what we can see going on today. Those with hope in the future, and those who only have the now.
© Vivian P. Kirkpatrick, 2017
Video from of this devotion here.
Sources:
- http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Code_of_the_Sith/Legends
- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7beqeq/camille-paglia-believes-that-revenge-of-the-sith-is-our-generations-greatest-work-of-art
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHqdESArkqU
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8631ukAVr6g
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9SQmDqaBJs
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQHJARqk_-c