There are probably about ten thousand ways I can go with this topic. Well, I should just start with the impetus. Soon after the movie came out, I was invited and accepted the invitation to go see The Dark Knight Rises, the end of the Christopher Nolan story arc of Batman. (Sidebar showing my nerdtastic-ness: Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy is the cinematic equivalent of the Alan Moore's work in the comic world on Batman [cp. The Killing Joke].)
I digress, but there is a theme throughout the movie where the villain, Bane talks about the absurdity of hope. While he puts Gotham under martial law, turning over the rule of the metropolis to the "people", holding them hostage with the core of a nuclear fusion reactor, he promotes hope. To him, hope inspires people to scramble for their own survival and devolve. This perspective is honed in a pit, a jail in the middle of a middle eastern desert. Where regularly inmates are given the chance to climb out of the pit only to fail and lose hope of survival. To make it worse there is the story of the one that made it to the top, which produces hope. Hope that it can be done, the one in million/billion can make it.
This is where Bruce Wayne found himself, this is where many of us find ourselves. We are in pits dug deep into the ground of our lives, the valley within the valley. We see others reach the top and climb out of their pits and it feels like we are trapped in the pits of despair that seem to be bottomless. But, I can tell you that the Bible is clear about the pits of life. The pits of life are false creations of an enemy that cannot get at what he really wants. Look at the story of Job, the discussion that Satan has with God about Job who was described as the most righteous man in the world. Job was so righteous and desired a right relationship with God that he offered sacrifices every day in the case of failings by his children. This is what gets Satan's attention so he approaches God with an challenge against Job's righteousness, He was only righteous because everything was hunky dory or peachy keen. God gave Satan the right to take away his children and his wealth and then when that failed the right to harm Job's body.
I am going to stick a pin here. When I say that pits are false creations, I am not saying that the feelings that you encounter in the pit are not real. the circumstances, the pain, the agony, the shame, despair is very real and should not be minimized. But, I know of something that is more real and more powerful and that is hope. The Bible says that hope does not make us ashamed (Romans 5:3-5). Job held on through his story (which takes place over a remarkably brief period of time) to the hope that he would be rescued and vindicated, liberated, delivered and redeemed. I can point to story after story after story to pull out a nugget of truth about the mythology of the pit from Joseph to Paul. This is the punchline of every pit you encounter in life: "OUR GOD is greater, OUR GOD is stronger, GOD, you are higher than any other." Jesus was raised from the pit of death and was raised victorious forever. In this we can have hope that is unfailing. This reality makes the pit a lie no more than a myth than Batman. So, our challenge is to speak to the pits in our lives with courageous authority and watch the power of God shatter the pit first in our hearts and minds and then in our realities.
"And not only [so], but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. (Romans 5:3-5 KJV)."
Be blessed (Sorry for the absence),
Ernest
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