Sometimes I wish the cartoons I watched as a kid (and even watch now) were more biblical. I think it would be great if the Bible started like this: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And in the deep recesses of space, God hid five robotic lions, that when combined form Voltron, the legendary defender of the universe.
I am sure I could make almost any toy story into a biblical story. Adam and Eve with Ken and Barbie, Spiderman and responsibility, lightsabers and battling darkness, or Voltron and defending the universe from King Zarkon, Prince Lotor, and Witch Hagar (all of which I am sure you know). We love toys, heroes, and games because it allows us to step in and be the savior of our own story…which is the exact opposite of the real, biblical story.
It is interesting to me that whenever we write stories today, we find a way for humanity to be the answer—whether it’s through powered suits, powered spiders, or powered lions. I think we’re drawn to the idea that rather than being part of the mess, we are the answer to the mess. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the Bible tells a completely different story. The Scriptures tell a story that the universe needs to be defended, in major part, from humanity and its self-centered mindset.
We have told ourselves stories today that help us avoid the reality of who we are. Have you ever heard anyone say to you, “They’re a good person”? It sounds like we are always trying to justify each other and ourselves. In the Bible there is a concept that comes out of our original fall from relationship with God called “original sin.” Today there are a lot of people who fight against this idea (like Voltron fighting against King Zarkon). Where the Bible teaches that we are all born with a sin nature and a proclivity toward evil, there is a whole push today that says that human beings are essentially born “good.”
What is so wrong with thinking we are born good? It hides the true nature of humanity behind a veil of lies as thick as the mirror world in Doctor Strange. By believing we are born good, we get to write off any bad thing we do as not truly being our fault. What I mean is that if we can convince ourselves that we are good at our core, then some outside force, a villain, has done something to us to make us do something evil or wrong. If we are essentially good, we would never choose to do wrong of our own volition. Something must have made us do it…therefore what we did is really not our fault.
If we accept the Bible’s proposition that we are born into sin, with a propensity for evil, then the things we choose to do that are wrong become our fault completely. It means that adversity doesn’t make us lash out and respond poorly; it simply shows us who we really are. If we are truly born into a sin nature, it shows us the necessity of a savior—and that savior cannot be one of us. This is exactly what the scriptures teach us, that God Himself had to come to rescue us from ourselves. Jesus wasn’t a man who placed himself in an Ironman god-suit; He is God who placed himself in a man-suit to pay the penalty for our sin that we could never pay.
A toy story mentality always ends up with us as the center of the story because we like being the center; we like not thinking we have to rely on anyone or anything else. We’re tempted to believe that if we just had that special suit of armor, that magic wand, the powerful lion, we could solve our own issues. I love toy stories as much as the next guy, but I believe it is more important to live in reality. The reality is that our God came to rescue us…and that is the Christmas Story that trumps all toy stories.
1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
