“Dear Evan Hansen” is a coming-of-age story that follows a socially awkward and anxious high school senior who struggles to fit in. Following a tragedy, Evan gets caught in a web of lies which forces him to choose between telling the truth (something he doesn’t do well) or allowing his lies to hurt the people he cares about. If he tells the truth, he’ll be able to stop the damage his lies have inflicted on the family of a recently deceased boy, Connor. If he continues on his path of deceit, he’ll live under the false guise of a hero as he romantically pursues Connor’s sister, Zoe. As the walls of the room start closing in on Evan, his often-distant working and single mother, Heidi, finally catches him red-handed. 

Evan’s Dad left the family when he was just a boy and has been absent ever since. It’s not hard at this point to put the pieces together and realize that Evan’s desire to be known stems back from never being accepted by his father. The focus now turns to Heidi, who explains the day Evan’s dad left through the song “So Big / So Small” by Rachel Bay Jones.

After recounting Evan’s final goodbye before his Dad left in his truck, Heidi readily admits her inability to be the parent she wanted to be. 

And the house felt so big, and I felt so small

The house felt so big, and I—

And I knew there would be moments that I’d miss

And I knew there would be space I couldn’t fill

And I knew I’d come up short a billion different ways

And I did

And I do

And I will

And yet, her steadfast love for her son hasn’t faded. She remembers her son asking her at a later point, “Is there another truck coming to our driveway? A truck that will take Mommy away?”

Even when her son has broken her trust through lies, deceit, and motives of selfish gain for his own comfort, Heidi reminds her son of who she is:

But like that February day

I will take your hand, squeeze it tightly and say

There’s not another truck in the driveway

Your mom isn’t going anywhere

Your mom is staying right here

…

No matter what

I’ll be here

…

When it all feels so big

‘Til it all feels so small

We’ve all become accustomed to a conditional love that says it will stick with us if we continue to behave, check the boxes, or not mess up past a certain point. Brokenness runs deeply in each of our personal and familial histories. It’s easy to feel like the rope of grace we have been given is either too short or too frail, eventually and inevitably snapping, leaving us ousted from the love and commitment we so desperately want and need.

For Evan, it was an actual father who left. For me, it was a broken friendship that left me feeling like a failure. Maybe for you, it was a spouse or significant other who abandoned you when you couldn’t hold up your end of the bargain. Or a friend group that gave you the cold shoulder when your utility ran its course. Whatever it is, we’re all afraid to be “on the outside looking in…” to reference another song from the soundtrack. 

In the story of the prodigal son, in Luke 15, we see the heart of Jesus towards us weak and weary sinners and outcasts. In the story, the son who had once comped his father’s money, spit in his face, and squandered it all on foolish and carnal gains, now returns in desperate hopes to beg for a place to sleep and be fed in his father’s house. He probably felt like his rope of grace had snapped long ago. But what happens next is nothing short of breathtaking:

It says: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.”

It’s hard to put into words just how radical this kind of love is. The directionality of this love, from father to son, could not be overturned by any amount of lies, deceit, and terrible life choices that the wayward son could concoct. Unlike the failed parent who leaves us and forsakes us, God, though he catches us red-handed time and time again as we blunder through this life, sings the song of the cross over us, reminding us that, with him, “There will never be another truck in the driveway. I love you simply because I love you, not based on what you’ve done or not done, but by my own sacrifice. Come inside, the party has already begun. And it will last forever.”

The post No More Trucks in the Driveway appeared first on Red Tree.

Good storytelling usually leaves us in a state of surprise — not just with a well-placed plot twist, but with which part of the plot gives us the most “feels” and which part we walk away ruminating about. Dune is an excellent example of this. 

The lore and world of Dune would take too long to summarize here, not to mention the intricacies of the story itself — maybe you’ve seen or read it? — from the traditions of Bene Gesserit witchcraft to the geopolitics of the spice trade to the biology of the sandworms. But I will say, visually, Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptation of Herbert’s sci-fi classic hit on all cylinders. At least for this fan.

One of the more endearing parts to me amid the relative darkness of the story is how undeservedly and almost stubbornly the main character, 15-year-old Paul Atreides, is loved by the big three father figures in his life. I say father figures because they even seem to surpass the love of his actual father, Leto, who often seems more concerned about pruning his heir than spending quality time with him. 

Their names are Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, and Duncan Idaho, all of whom play significant roles in helping to protect and secure the Atreides’ house. They’re elite warriors, master assassins in their own right, yet they share such a surprisingly soft spot for the boy Paul. Thufir (who is a much more developed character in the book) calls himself “an old man who’s fond of [him],” and is constantly watching his back. The younger Halleck wants to play-wrestle with him and oscillates between that and the actual sparring meant to prepare him for battle. Duncan, portrayed by Jason Momoa, isn’t afraid to embrace him or playfully tease him, calls him “my boy,” and ultimately lays down his life for him. The moment when he touches Paul’s thin arm and says, “You’ve put on some weight!” to which Paul says “Really?” to which Duncan replies “No” was the only point that I audibly laughed while watching the movie.

They’re light, humorous, and admittedly passing moments in the story. You might be thinking, “What about the sandworms!” Yes, the sandworms are epic. But as is the case in a grand but otherwise loveless story (sandworms don’t love), these things stick out. They’re meant to. And what accentuates the love even more is the solemnity of their situation and the significant threats that await the family on Arrakis. Paul’s personal struggles and sins stand out as well: his inner messiah complexes and nightmares that plague him through life, which he sadly gives in to at the end of the book. This disillusionment with the savior figure leads us all the more to ask who we’re rooting for and who or what is going to bring resolution. But this is a welcome twist, not unlike the “heroes” of the Old Testament who have more flaws than strengths, and who give us glimpses of hope, but ultimately not from themselves.

Maybe in Dune’s case, the answer is staring at us right in the face, through the B-level characters who love from the shadows. In the midst of one of the crueler depictions of humanity that you’ll see anywhere in literature or film (the Harkonnens), and the drama of war and betrayal, I find that my hope is less for a universe that Paul can conquer, or even for Arrakis to transform into a tropical paradise, but instead for a world filled with a love like Hawat’s, Halleck’s, and Idaho’s.

There are a thousand other things going on in Dune. I’m not trying to “solve” this story by any stretch. Its complexity and how it breaks the mold is what makes it so intriguing. That said, it’s this love from outside of us, and from outside our bloodline, that I can’t shake. 

It reminds me of the Book of Ruth when Ruth decides to return with her mother-in-law Naomi to her homeland after both of their husbands die. Her promise of “Your people will be my people, and my God, your God” is one of the more well-known in this section of Scripture. It’s a bright spot in an otherwise dark time of biblical history “when the judges ruled” (Ruth 1:1) and all Harkonnen-hell was breaking loose pretty much all the time. But Ruth is a glimpse of love that was all too rare those days. 

At the end of the book, Naomi is told by her friends, “Your daughter-in-law, who loves you, is better to you than seven sons.” Now, there’s a plot twist. No offense to my or anyone else’s in-laws, but aren’t our kids even more valuable? Yet here the Bible operates on its own terms. The surprise left hook of a love coming from outside our bloodline, apart from us altogether, pushes the story forward to the one we could call the ultimate in-law, the friend who sticks closer than a brother (Prov 18:24), Jesus Christ, who would come to love us apart from what we have to give him, by dying for us. God’s grace is given, not sourced or earned. It’s a complete surprise, so we can’t take any credit or consider it a “family trait.”

And yet it’s what we need to quell the tide of the messiah complexes in our hearts, our tireless attempts at self-deifying and self-aggrandizing. We need a love that precedes it and stays faithful to us when we slip back into it. A love that doesn’t keep score and that simply loves us for who we are, even when we’re up to our eyeballs in the sands of sin, drunk on the spice of power, and seduced by the allure of thinking that we’re enough on our own.

The post Fatherly Love and Messiah Complexes appeared first on Red Tree.

It’s nostalgic. It’s funny. It’s visually striking. The acting is superb. The music’s catchy. The interplay between the Barbie world and the real world is creatively portrayed, without being too cliche. In all, the movie has a lot going for it. It’s, just, fun.

But there was something that left us feeling hollow afterward. On our walk home, after a few minutes of internal processing and silence, my wife broke the ice: “I think it needed a love story.” “Mmm,” I agreed, “Tell me more.” She elaborated: “I just wanted to see some kind of sacrifice or deference, but it kept hitting a glass wall every time I thought it might go that way.” 

If you haven’t seen it, there are several moments in the movie where Ken declares his love for Barbie, only to be rejected with a “That’s really not what we need right now”-type sentiment. Even the God-figure (Barbie’s creator), after teasing us with a tear-inducing speech of “You’re perfect, in spite of your flaws, Barbie,” (the most powerful moment in the movie, in my opinion) quickly pivots to the “You can do anything you want” messaging that rounds out the rest of the film. It ends with the narrator holding out hope that Kens would rise up in status with Barbies in Barbieworld just like women would rise up in status with men in the real world. And it all just kind of…happened…without a shade of self-giving or sacrifice from any of the characters. It was as if the messaging itself was the main character more than Barbie, who just kind of dragged everyone along to the not-so-surprising conclusion.

Now, I realize that a love story in the Barbie movie in the year 2023 was never going to happen. But it’s interesting to consider why it couldn’t happen. Love requires sacrifice, which implies neediness. It’s built on the foundation of putting others first, which implies distinction. It often catches us by surprise, because the one who we think has some kind of priority suddenly desires to become lesser for the sake of the other. But all of this has a hard time living in a story where equality, independence, and self-aggrandizement wear the cape. It’s like a squishy ball when you press down on the center and the internal contents get pushed to the outside. Some themes just can’t co-exist; instead, one thing gets decentralized at the expense of the other. In this case, love.

It’s a somewhat surprising turn for director Greta Gerwig who isn’t aloof to sacrificial love in other works of hers like Little Women and Ladybird. But maybe that’s the point. We’re all a bit like her, trying (even unintentionally) to move on from love – to find ultimate meaning in the self rather than in the objective deference and sacrifice of another.

When it comes to the divine romance between Jesus and the Church, it’s predicated on the fact that the bride and the groom are different. We are not God, and he is not us. He’s the stronger party who willingly lays down his life for us, the weaker party. He puts us first, even scandalously, by becoming “just a Ken” in our place. For love to truly take root, someone needs to give, defer, and suffer. But, as it is, the clamoring for equality and extreme independence poisons the roots of romance, just like the law drives a wedge between God and people because it’s built more on posturing and work than receiving and grace.

Christianity isn’t a story about rising up to be like others, nor of a God who tells us we can accomplish whatever we put our minds to, but of a lover stooping down low and sacrificing himself for those he loves. Directionality is important, both in spirituality and storytelling. All it takes is a little bit of love to set things in the right direction (down, that is, not up). Not just in a marriage, but in all kinds of relationships, big or small — a love that considers others more important than yourself (Philippians 2:3), and a love that makes us okay standing in the shadows while others shine.

I like to think that if the story continued, maybe Ken and Barbie would come to see this. Barbie 2, anyone? But then again, without love, it would keep getting lost in all of the strivings for sameness. Thankfully, love comes from above not from within, so our hope is set not on getting this all figured out, but by fixing our gaze on a bloody cross where heaven kisses earth in a way that is undeniably self-effacing yet breathtakingly beautiful.

The post No Room For Love appeared first on Red Tree.

The story takes place in a small, impoverished Pennsylvania town, and revolves around Detective Mare Sheehan, a woman with layers and layers of unresolved trauma, including a son who killed himself and a missing girl case she was never able to solve. But that’s not the main crime of the show. In episode 1, another teenage girl is murdered, and Mare dives headlong into trying to solve what she couldn’t solve before and to distract herself from her sorrow in the process.

From there the show is, well, a veritable rollercoaster — one of those coasters that twist, drop, and even move backward at times. I think my wife and I both used the phrase, “That show wrecked me.” But my purpose here is not to summarize or spoil, but to highlight a surprise, well-placed nugget that caught us off guard toward the end of the show. One that underlines perhaps the main layer to the story.

After running into some initial obstacles, Mare’s boss calls in some help from the County, another detective named Colin Zabel who made a name for himself by solving a tricky cold case single-handedly. Mare is hesitant at first, as she likes to work alone, but eventually they become friends and work well together. As the show progresses, we learn they both have similar story arcs: significant past victories that led to present-day sputterings. Zabel solved the cold case but has found little success since then. Mare, when she was in high school, made an incredible basketball shot to win a game that she’s still recognized for at pep rallies and community meetings, even though she’s now in her late 40s. But since then? Failure, dysfunction, addiction, and disappointment. Both of their lives started big like fireworks with a spectacular burst of color and excitement, only to fizzle out into a disappointing, anticlimactic finale.

But that sets up the climax to this particular subplot. Zabel at one point confesses to Mare, “I just want to do something great,” to which Mare responds: “Doing something great is overrated. Because then people expect that from you all the time. What they don’t realize is you’re just as screwed up as they are.” 

Ahhh, ok. I didn’t know it was going to be that kind of show — more than a crime drama, and a welcome one at that. In a turn toward the existential, even theological, Mare says doing something great comes with further (unsolicited) expectations that you can never measure up to. If it’s not an exponential growth curve upward, something must be wrong, the prevailing thought seems to be. But Mare of Easttown shows the folly of such a way of thinking. We’re all just as screwed up as everyone else is. Why do temporal successes blind us to the truth?

In Christian theology, salvation is positioned as something that is given by grace, not as a reward for past successes, nor as an expectation of a new level of greatness. It doesn’t say “What else you got?” but instead whispers unconditional love to screwed-up sinners, by way of a bloody cross. Sometimes it’s in our pursuit of greatness that we miss God on the ascent. Jesus’s disciples once asked him who would be the greatest in his kingdom. But he pumped the brakes on that way of thinking by saying to be great is to not be that great and to be ok with that. In God’s kingdom, the pursuit of greatness isn’t required, nor is even the pursuit of God, but coming to terms with our limitations and resting in the fact that he pursues us, relentlessly, at great cost to himself.

To say it differently, and maybe more controversially: grace doesn’t expect anything of us. That’s the key. And when we come to understand this, everything changes. Far from paralyzing us, it frees us. We can celebrate wins, but also not be crushed by our losses, as God’s love is given (and maintained) completely apart from our circumstances, work, and reciprocation.

Doing something great can be a good thing, but it’s overrated. Especially when we centralize it. Believing, however, in the one who did something great for us will never go out of style, and he’s the one who is able to meet the follow-up expectations. As Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” See, with grace, there is no exponential growth curve, just a downward pointing arrow, from heaven to the Easttown of our souls, signaling God’s willing, self-effacing descent to become “un-great” like the sinners he loved and was bound to save.

The post Greatness is Overrated appeared first on Red Tree.

Then you have The Last of Us, HBO’s latest weekly blockbuster – a television show that is in fact based on the story of a video game. Since the first episode aired, more than a million viewers continue to tag on to the multimillion-person watch party every Sunday night, tuning in to see if this fungal apocalypse can live up to all the hype. And so far it has because people like my wife and me continue to look forward to our chance to tune back into an infected world where fungal zombies aren’t the only impossible problem to overcome.  

We might think we’re driven to stories like these out of a “what would I do?” sense of interest, but it seems the show is asking bigger, more compelling questions of us. The end of the world in this show really isn’t about the end of the world. Instead, it’s a pressure cooker, revealing what really matters. And surprisingly, it’s not survival but love that takes center stage. Let me explain. 

Viewers encounter the scariest scene in the opening montage of the show. I haven’t played the game, so I don’t know what’s coming later in the season, but I know it won’t be more terrifying than the terrain we already covered. It can’t be. We watched the worst thing imaginable already take place when the main character Joel loses his daughter in his arms. Society as we know it is collapsing in front of our eyes, but the thing that viscerally devastated viewers most and brought us to tears was seeing a father lose his child. 

I had not known fear until my daughter was born in 2021. I thought I knew what it was to be afraid, but then, throughout the first 12 months of being a dad, my limbic system said “hold my beer.” Catching whatever sickness she brings into our home every other week is nothing compared to the overwhelming, unshakeable sense of vulnerability. I am of the anxious parenting type that had to roll over in the middle of the night (more than once) to hear for breathing or see signs of life. As if my being awake could stop the demon of SIDS or the unending list of threats to the life of an infant. 

This is why I find the Joel/Ellie dynamic so compelling in the show. Joel hasn’t really come back to life since his biological daughter died right in front of his eyes, there has been no resurrection – no reason for new life – his heart is hiding behind a shell of self-protection, making decisions solely on the need to keep himself from experiencing more pain. But now, a force is at work in him he has not known for decades. Love, in fact, is beginning to shake him out of his zombie-like existence, as he is called to lead, and in many ways parent, a teenage girl again – to keep Ellie safe in a world that would do her harm. 

He can’t convince himself that he doesn’t care. He tries to tell Ellie that she is nothing more than cargo in Episode 4, titled Please Hold My Hand, but viewers need not wait more than five minutes to catch him in his lie. That night they are camping in the woods and after describing his plan to sleep through the night and then drive for 24 hours straight, Ellie soon asks if they are safe where they are before they fall asleep. Joel assures her that no one is going to find them in the woods. The words bring comfort to Ellie but Joel knows the threats are out there and his plan to sleep through the night is interrupted by instinct. He stays up all night, gun in hand, protecting his new daughter.

This seconds-long scene is easily skippable, but it’s one that continues to live rent-free in my mind. A sleepless father, emptying himself to keep his child safe while the world comes to an end. In more ways than one, it resembles the Bible’s own story of the end of the world – but not in the way we might first expect. 

The book of Revelation, which has endured more fantastical misinterpretations than most any other book in the Bible, is an “apocalypse” which literally means reveal. That is, the book is interested in showing us the perspective behind the curtain of heaven. What’s behind the curtain? Turns out the end of the world, like what we see in The Last of Us, is not about survival, but about a Father who loves his kid. This love sounds like the roar of a lion but looks like a lamb who was slain (Rev 5:6). Indeed, Revelation teaches that the end of the world happened 2,000 years ago when God himself lost a child. The Son of God, slain like a lamb, was strung up on a tree to save an infected world of self-protecting Joels like me from our anxious ways.

The world has come to an end, and the new is breaking forth. Fearful fathers can take a deep breath and look at the only father who is never afraid because he suffered for us once and for all. He stayed awake at night for us, slaying that which truly threatens to do us harm. This is the love that has come near to shake us out of our zombie-like existence by way of a love that never sleeps. 

The post The Last of Us & Fearful Fathering appeared first on Red Tree.

***Spoilers galore (and a little cussing) from Knives Out and Glass Onion.

Our family loves the Knives Out story. Mystery. Intrigue. Justice. Grace. Recall the plot. The patriarch, Harlan Thrombey–fully in control–orchestrates events that not only include his own death but simultaneously protect his beloved nurse, Marta, from incrimination. And, oh yeah, he bequeaths all his riches to Marta rather than the Thrombey kin. Why? His children and grandchildren are selfish, greedy, arrogant, reckless, heartless, and ruthless. It’s easy to root for the nurse while wanting justice (i.e. no inheritance) for the patriarch’s immediate family members. 

Now consider Glass Onion, the second Knives Out mystery. Recall the plot. Helen pretends to be her deceased twin sister, Andi, in hopes of identifying her sister’s killer. The entrance of Andi, ‘er Helen, ‘er “Andi” for her island reunion weekend confounds her sister’s so-called friends. As Blanc unfurls the backstory, we uncover the group’s dysfunction as well as the killer’s motive and identity. 

Mystery. Intrigue. Justice. … Grace?

Watching Glass Onion makes you wonder who you are cheering for. Miles Bron manipulates with money. His disruptor friends will “lie for a lie” before deciding to “lie for a truth”…which, despite this transformation, means they’re still liars. 

What about Benjamin Blanc – is he our hero? Before exiting, he becomes complicit (!) in criminal destruction by handing Helen an item used to destroy the Glass Onion – and the Mona Lisa! Even Helen, the formerly quiet, rural, 3rd-grade teacher, shirks justice in favor of retribution on her own terms. 

This film gives us some good laughs, an exciting adrenaline makeover with a thick plot twist, and a creative mystery that resembles the very title of the movie, but something is missing. At the end of the day, I finished the movie longing for something the first film provided that this one didn’t. 

Consider the last line of Glass Onion compared to that within Knives Out. In the former, Benoit Blanc asks, “Did you get the son of a bitch?” to which Helen replies, “Yeah.” Helen’s story is one of retribution. But in Knives Out, after all the horrendous mistreatment by the family toward Marta, she asks Blanc, “This family, I should care for them. Right?” Wow! The family’s treachery will not be met with revenge and this story will not end with Marta getting those SOBs. In short, Marta somehow (supernaturally?) tells a different story than Helen. 

Christian theology teaches a message of low anthropology. This means that, despite our best intentions, we can be just as selfish, greedy, arrogant, reckless, heartless, and ruthless as the Thrombeys or Miles Bron or any one of the “s—heads.” We may not blow up buildings but we light fuses with our biting criticisms. We may be spared the sense of resentment against a loved one’s killer but who isn’t familiar with resentment toward a parent? A spouse? Your child mid-tantrum? Benjamin Blanc solved the case but couldn’t solve the human condition. He soberly and yet fittingly concludes this “just stinks”… kind of like an onion. 

In stories and in life we long for a hero who doesn’t just look at our circumstances with a diagnosis. We long for one who addresses and even resolves the “just stinks” nature of the human condition. The Bible tells the story of one who came to do this very thing.  

Recall the plot. Jesus diagnoses the brokenness of our world, those parts of life which just reek, and brings resolution – even declaring, “I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5). God the Son–fully in control–orchestrates events that not only include his own death but simultaneously protect his beloved–his church–from incrimination. And this gift is not only for the Martas of our world, those described as having “a good heart.” An invitation is extended to the most selfish, greedy, arrogant, reckless, heartless, and ruthless Thrombeys of our world. In his story, Jesus doesn’t stop at mystery, intrigue, or even justice; he ends with grace…for you and for me.

What is more, this grace transforms us. Those who have been given an inheritance, scandalously, apart from their work and expectations, tend to consider others in a new way. They, like Marta, instinctually start to ask, “This person, I should care for them. Right?” Yes. Because Jesus has cared for us at the highest of levels.

What a story Jesus tells! Mystery. Intrigue. Justice. Grace upon grace. Our family loves this story.

The post More Than A Plot Twist appeared first on Red Tree.

One of the best parts of watching one of these movies is that if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. I’m telling the truth here, there are even bingo cards because the plot points are that predictable. 

Even if you haven’t yet seen one, you know the story: 

• A busy businessperson visits a small town with the intent to destroy it.
• They, then, serendipitously meet the person they are supposed to be with.
• But they’ve also lost sight of the meaning of Christmas due to a dead relative, typically the mother.
• But they find old letters from the mother that remind them of the spirit of Christmas and together with their newfound love interest they save Christmas for the small town, just in time.

Why do I nestle into my couch to watch these movies annually – especially if they’re this predictable? Maybe it’s because they offer an expected escape. For two hours, I can step away from the unpredictability of my life and the perpetual moral incongruence that comes with being alive. I can forget all the ways I don’t live up to the ideal self I’ve concocted in my mind. I find respite in these movies where everything slows down, moral lessons are simple, and consequences for wrongdoing are easily mitigated. I want my life to be neat and tidy, like I’m living in a snow globe, where even when things get stirred up it is always beautiful and I remain completely put together. Like the perfect kiss as the snow falls at the end of a Hallmark movie, I want things to be pristine and simple.

My longing for simplicity often shows up when I think about what it means to have a relationship with God. Specifically, the mechanics of sanctification or what it looks like to be growing in grace. I want my growth in Christlikeness to come to me in an easier, more controlled, and morally clear way. I don’t want to keep taking two steps forward and three steps back. I want my life to play out like a Hallmark movie. I want easy “snow globe” sanctification, where I control the severity of my problems and the outcome is effortless and expected. I don’t want to be pushed over limits I didn’t know I have with surprise car maintenance or a sick baby screaming at 2am with an overloaded work day waiting on the other side of this sleepless night.

In my pursuit of simplicity, I stack up unbiblical performance metrics like IHOP pancakes and continually assess myself against a growth chart that the New Testament doesn’t prescribe. Where Jesus and the apostles talk about sanctification in the slow terms of agriculture like mustard trees (Mark 4:31-32), and bearing fruit (Gal 5:22-23), I insert mental charts and self-imposed data analytics into my walk with Jesus to quantify things and to make sense of myself.

Life in Christ and growth in grace is not simple, linear, or congruous. Snow globes are at rest but not fully beautiful until they get shaken up. It is precisely when things get messy that they can become beautiful. When I stop measuring my life and let grace shake me up, I realize that God isn’t interested in my performance and my own efforts to make myself holy. 

It’s also worth noting that easy life lessons never actually change people. What we need is a rescuer, not a teacher. The cross of Christ looms large here because his death for sinners like me means that God is not pacing the throne room of heaven, worrying about the messes we make or waiting for us to figure out how to better ourselves. The only one who was ever morally congruent put on our incongruence and mess. He became bloodied, bruised, and was ultimately killed — you could say he was the true snow globe who was shaken up and disturbed — because he understands the transformation process for people requires new life, not moral ladder climbing. 

Instead of focusing on how to make my life more predictable, I’m reminded that God has invested his Spirit to move like the wind (John 3:8) in my life, and to make me like his son Jesus (Rom 8:29), and he will complete his work (Phil 1:6). In the meantime, I get to continue allowing grace to shake me up. As I behold the overwhelming beauty of Jesus again and again (2 Cor 3:18), I find the simplicity and rest I long for and begin to experience God at work in transforming me.

The post Living In a Snow Globe appeared first on Red Tree.

To be honest, though, that’s always been a problematic part of the story for me. The ghosts’ approach to provoking change, though varied in one sense, is bookended with veritable horror films, starting with Marley who is temporarily let out of hell itself to terrify Scrooge, and ending with the grim reaper who forecasts Scrooge‘s death and fiery eternal destiny. Fear seems to get the final word when it comes to change. But is it rightly motivated, genuine change? Is it even possible for it to be? Where is the connection between seeing a picture of yourself on hell’s doorstep and then being moved to joyously pay for Tiny Tim‘s turkey? Is Scrooge really not afraid that maybe that single act of piety isn’t enough? It all feels too simplistic, like a shortcut is being taken somewhere. Maybe you can relate.

This year‘s updated spin on the story, Apple TV’s Spirited, eases some of this tension in a wonderfully surprising way. 

WARNING: *Spoilers abound from this point forward*

The twist is that Scrooge (Will Ferrell) is now the ghost of Christmas Present who is working for a larger ghost-operated organization that selects new Scrooges every year in order to pull another emotional and psychological mind-bender over on them, hopefully to change them for the better. Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds) is this season’s target — a selfish, opportunistic businessman who at first is passed over by the ghosts because he’s labeled “unredeemable.” 

But Scrooge is persistent. He argues that if Clint can be redeemed, then there’s hope for all of us, and that he might be able to use his gift of influence to positively affect others downstream. And so he convinces the others it’s all going to be worth it. 

But as Marley starts things off with the usual haunting, warning Clint of the impending visitation of the three ghosts, it becomes clear that this particular gig won’t go as normal for them. Clint is stubbornly curious, a hard scare, and doesn’t seem to feel as much guilt as the clients usually do. At one point Scrooge has to step in and go above and beyond when it becomes clear that the usual tricks won’t work on him. But these attempts are in vain; Clint’s heart just won’t budge. 

As the story goes on we learn that part of what draws Scrooge to Clint is that he sees a lot of himself in him, and ever since he died he has been battling his own demons about whether or not he would have stayed good if he would have lived longer. (He died 3 weeks after his own “conversion.”) So he projects himself onto Clint in the hopes of finding some existential resolution in the changed life of another.

As you might expect for a Ferrell and Reynolds movie, their humor, sarcastic banter, and shared musical performances help carry the story. But it’s their relationship that ultimately defines it. In fact, this is where things deviate even more from previous Carols. What leads to change, resolution, and peace (for both of them) isn’t the ghosts’ guilt trips or fear tactics, but a budding friendship between them, a willingness for Scrooge to “retire” and become human again, and an act of sacrificial love from Clint when he jumps in front of a bus to save Scrooge. 

Right up until the end, Clint is sure that the “process” won’t work on him and that after a few days he’ll rationalize it and return to who he was before. But what breaks through isn’t the vision of a funeral of a boy he helped to bully online (though that helps a little), but the unlikely and unmerited kindness he was shown by Scrooge and others. 

How refreshing! And, well, relatable. In the end, Dickens may have been too optimistic about the potential of the human heart. Sean Anders, the writer and director of Spirited, seems to have a lower anthropology, one that looks more like what we see in the New Testament when, after people start to believe in Jesus through the miraculous signs he was performing, we’re told: “Jesus did not entrust himself to them, for he himself knew what was in a man” (Jn 2:24-25). He knew our limitations, our propensity for disbelief, and — as Clint says — to rationalize the miraculous away and go back to our own selfish ways of living. 

When it comes to what truly changes (and redeems) us, morality itself isn’t the answer, nor are guilt trips, second chances, visions of hell, or any kind of “if/then,” law-like threat. Instead, God woos us with love. It’s the greater Christological visitation that actually breaks through, when the Son “retires” to become human in order to save us. Setting aside his miracles and turning his face toward Calvary, he would be swallowed up by death, so that we “unredeemables” might be forgiven.

Christianity, then, doesn’t haunt us as much as it says, “Jesus experiences the haunt for us.” He doesn’t goad us into measureless moralisms, but says “Do not fear.” When we wake from our own nightmarish self-reflections, we don’t have to race to make up for all of the terrible things we’ve done in life. Instead, we can rest knowing that God’s love expressed through Jesus’s own nightmarish death covers a multitude of sins. That’s not a quaint Christmas lesson, but the blessing God unconditionally gives — to the bad and the good, the worst of us and the best of us.

The post When the Haunt Doesn’t Work appeared first on Red Tree.

I’m a big fan of Marvel. I have watched all the movies, shows, and end credit scenes. I love the thrill of watching one of them for the first time. They bring a certain assurance with them. I know they’ll be exciting, maybe even a little sad, but the end will be happy. The good guys will ultimately win the day. You’ll leave the theater feeling capable and light because good always triumphs in the end. 

But that’s not really the case with Doctor Strange 2. The movie, while peppered with the usual sarcastic flair that makes Marvel movies fun to watch, is unlike any other in the line-up. The line between good and evil is blurred, and you are given no clear, happy resolution. I was uncomfortable watching it, and it took me a little while to figure out why.

Perhaps you’ve seen the spectrum of responses to the movie. Some people love it, others hate it, but all agree it is a dark first leap for Marvel into the horror genre. I had heard quite a bit about the witchcraft involved, the zombie appearances, the gore, etc. I knew it was going to be different. But these aren’t the things that made me squirm in my theater seat. The problem was with Wanda.

Wanda Maximoff is one of my favorite Marvel superheroes—her powers are born from loss and pain, both of which seem to torment her relentlessly. Wanda’s primary role in the Infinity War/End Game movies is to lose the love of her life. Then again, the cold grip of loss and pain steers the story in the Disney+ series WandaVision. But throughout the stories, she is the good guy, the hero who ultimately tries to right the wrongs and resist the evil forces seeking to dominate our world. She makes bad choices, but they are born from grief, and therefore feel excusable. But in Doctor Strange 2, Wanda rides the black horse. She is the aggressor, the one who chases. She hunts her prey, unintimidated and unstoppable. Out of all the Marvel villains, she terrorizes her way to the top as the most brutal, the most powerful. She embodies unfettered inescapable evil. The stuff reserved for nightmares.

Marvel has not hesitated to show the flaws in its heroes. That’s a huge part of the joy of watching them. We get to see the cracks in their armor, and yet they (almost) always prevail. Sinking into the Marvel universe is actually quite a lovely escape from reality. There, good will triumph. Good will be on this side, and evil will be on that side. Flawed does not equal evil in the other Marvel movies. Flawed equals more relatable, it tells us we are allowed to be flawed and yet still be the good guys too. We get to come away feeling like we are and always were on the side of Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man. We root for the good guys because we are the good guys. Marvel becomes our rose-colored mirror, our filtered “good guy” selfie.

But in this movie, Wanda the good guy becomes the Scarlet Witch, interrupting the balance. There is no point at which you can watch her doggedly and unapologetically limping after the heroes and not be terrified. There is no redemption waiting for her at the end, no caveat that will make her wicked pursuit forgivable. Death must bring her painful story to an end. There is no room for us to relate to her and still come away from the movie feeling good about ourselves. Wanda strips the rose tint off of our mirror and replaces it with blood. A character many of us relate so strongly to has just pulled the rug out from under us. And the discomfort in the movie theater didn’t come from feeling like I could no longer relate to her. The discomfort came from the realization that this tirade she was on was, in fact, uncomfortably relatable. This nose-dive to the belly of evil is something I understand, but seek to avoid about myself. We much prefer being able to relate to a flaw and then have it quickly outnumbered and forgotten by all the good things that we do as our own types of superheroes. I can ignore the impatience I have with my children because I packed stellar lunches for them. I can turn my eyes from the selfishness I show in my marriage because of the other ways in which I serve my husband. One outweighs the other, right? This unending onslaught of my darker reality was not what I signed up for in going to a Marvel film. 

As I sat watching this movie, it was as if I was seeing a picture of myself for who I truly am: a blood-soaked, unredeemable sinner, who unflinchingly hurts others in order to achieve her own goals. My fingers black, my eyes red, my gaze wild. There’s no saving me. I’m too far gone.

Except.

Where this fictional story ends, with the Scarlet Witch bringing her temple down on top of herself, mine does not. 

My Scarlet-Witch-self deserves it, but unlike Doctor Strange who could not save her, my own savior stepped into the chasm with me. In his own Samson-like way, Jesus took my place under that crumbling temple while my redeemed, unstained, undeserving self walked away alive and forgiven. 

It’s not often that the world gives us such a clear picture of our own hearts, where a seemingly “good guy” peels back the layer and shows the rot underneath with no chance for a cure. I am thankful for the discomfort that I felt in the theater because while I ate the popcorn, I got to see just how amazing it is that Jesus looked at these Wanda-esque, unredeemable qualities in me and still came running down the mountain for me. 

While this was not the normal Marvel experience I anticipated, I found this discomfort was, in the end, perhaps even more of a balm for my weary soul than the rose-colored “everyone is a hero” mantra we normally seek after. It allowed me to unclench my fists a bit (except, you know, during the jump-scares) and relax into this unbelievable grace that is so freely offered at the foot of the cross. 

The post Riding the Dark Horse appeared first on Red Tree.

Early on, we meet Timmy Keane, the have-it-all neighbor, who becomes the object lesson in how our desires actively work against us. Timmy becomes the only one in school with the means to acquire the Power Glove, Nintendo’s then revolutionary wearable controller that elevates your gameplay beyond the mere use of your thumbs.  Every kid in the area code (and even some adults) flock to Timmy’s doorstep, desperate to even see someone else wield this digital holy grail. The growing crowd offers bribes to be on the shortlist of those selected to watch one kid play the one thing everyone else wants.  But the Power Glove is more like a Monkey’s Paw, only delivering on its promises with unexpected consequences. Rather than equip Timmy with superior fighting skills in the game, the controller is a flop, which gives rise to a type of wrath in Timmy that leaves no small wake of destruction. He high kicks the big screen TV — which then falls on and crushes the family’s tiny terrier. The kids are horrified, and the feelings only multiply. Timmy’s tantrum soon incites a mob of protesting parents who think the Nintendo is to blame. The result? Every kid in the neighborhood is told there will be no Nintendo under the tree. After one kid’s blowup, the hopes for an 8-Bit Christmas are unplugged. 

What does this parable teach us? Where are we in this short story?  For starters, the belief that we can “be like God” has been the human problem since the serpent first “inception’d” the idea in the minds of our ancient parents (Adam and Eve). It’s our universal desire to slip on a type of Power Glove of control over not just the games we play, but our very lives. We think we can be master and commander of our own ship, no matter how much irrefutable evidence demands the opposite conclusion. Numerous stories and teachings of scripture reveal that a cosmic Power Glove does exist, but it’s too big for us to wear. It’s on the hand of God, whose right hand protects, delivers, and rescues his people. Christmas is wrapped in an offensive message. It says to us that we all play the part of Timmy Keane. We betray our own selves and communities in our regularly making a muck of that which matters to us. We throw tantrums and high-kick the things others love. Maybe you didn’t literally kick a TV this year, but you probably said something in the heat of a moment that harmed a relationship. Or maybe you’ve made a habit of talking behind a coworker’s back, with the real hope of heaving them under the metaphorical big screen of the contempt of public opinion. Perhaps our wakes are wider than we realize.  But underneath the offensive wrapping paper, packing tape, and packaging, lies the gift of Christmas. God puts on his power glove by laying in a manger. His tiny hands will soon grow into young man’s hands that will touch and heal many until they ultimately catch a nail when he is pinned up on a tree to die for the Timmy Keanes of the world. The goalposts are no longer moving. Enjoy your forgiveness. 

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This post originally appeared on mbird.com

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