I’m going to do something annoying. Or rather, I’m going to do something that I found annoying when I was fallen away from belief. This won’t be annoying to those who have faith, but it will to those who don’t. I am going to take a non-Christian movie and talk about it in terms of Christian redemption and rebirth. That’s the annoying thing I’m going to do.

As I said, this won’t irritate everyone, only some. Those in the choir won’t mind, but those outside the church will find it irritating.

While I was cavorting in the fields of unbelief, after falling away from faith, if I heard someone interpret a movie as a Christian film or explain how a character was a “type” of Jesus figure, I cringed. During that time, I felt that the Christians encroached on pop culture by twisting characters and plots into parallels that didn’t actually exist. I felt the Christians were desperately trying to remain relevant in a culture that had moved on. Furthermore, I felt that the pop culture should not be interfered with in this way. Now I see irony in this reaction. When I believed that I had no religion, I was offended that the art and film of secular culture was being somehow attacked.

Every hit movie that came out would soon result in some Christian “zealot” interpreting the story as a suffering and redemption plot that explained why we needed a savior. (Notice how we only call religious people zealots, but we reserve the term for when they observe their actual beliefs? We never call secular people zealots, even though they follow their set of beliefs openly and browbeat others who don’t as wrong. This may also have to be a topic for future episodes.)

In particular, I recall this interpretation happening with the movie, The Matrix. As soon as Christians watched this movie, articles about the parallels between Neo and Christ emerged. The Christians seized upon it, borrowing the movie’s success for use in evangelizing sci-fi fans.

This irritated me a great deal, mostly because the parallels were obvious, but I didn’t want to admit it. Let’s look at the high points, without going too far into it. The name Neo is a scrambling of the word “One.” Neo is the savior of the world. His sidekick girlfriend is named Trinity. The place they are trying to get to is called Zion. The ship is named Nebuchadnezzar. There’s a small band of believers, a betrayal, and an evil force. There are demonic agents that can appear and disappear. There is a death and even a resurrection. There are so many other Biblical references that it doesn’t take a genius or even a stretch of the brain muscle to map the Matrix movie to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Christian writers have always looked for signs of Christ in works of art, and will always do so, just as atheist and humanist and scientist and communist writers will try to do the same for their worldview. For every author that supports Christianity, there is another trying to tear it down. All is fair in love and war, but also in ideology and propaganda, as every side will have defenders that cross lines of decency and employ every logical fallacy and stoke fears like a furnace. Not every debate is as charitable and honest as say, Jimmy Akin vs. Bart Ehrman, where we get to see the best of the defenders sparring in kindness and putting forth their best argument.

Let’s get started. In the next few episodes, I’m going to talk about the movie Jumanji! (the 2017 version) and the character named “Mouse” Finbar, and somehow I’m going to tie that over to Moses and Nicodemus.

Anyone annoyed yet? I hope not. I have a long ways to go. Let’s get going.

In the movie, Jumanji!, four high school kids of different cliques are magically brought into a video game where they must survive by collaboration to escape. Jumanji (2017 version) is where The Breakfast Club meets The Hunger Games. In fact, it’s worth pausing here to mention that if you want to write a hit book or movie, you might do well to combine several prior hits in a new way, but you must use high school age kids or no one will buy it or read it. Jumanji did a nice job of this, as did The Hunger Games, which to me seemed to be a remix of The Most Dangerous Game and The Lottery. High school age kids make more interesting characters than middle-aged men and women, because everyone has their own coming of age story, whereas not everyone has their own mid-life crisis story (yet).

I’m going to focus on Kevin Hart's character. In the video game, Kevin Hart’s character “Mouse” is upset to learn that “strength is his weakness.” This comment is tossed off as a comic one-liner in the movie, but I would like to suggest that this is what the whole movie is about.

Kevin Hart's character in the video game is the opposite of his real world self. In the real world, the actor Ser'Darius Blain plays Anthony "Fridge" Johnson, who is a high school football stud. He's handsome, he's got youth, he’s got looks, and most of all, he is strong. Even his name and nickname sound powerful, and he only selects his video game character because he misread the nickname as “Moose,” only to learn that the actual name of the character is Franklin “Mouse” Finbar. A pixelated TV screen made the word difficult to read, causing him to misread Mouse as Moose.

Once inside the video game, Fridge is in disbelief upon discovering his character's skills and weapons. One of his weaknesses is “strength.” He says, “Strength is my weakness. Hey, can I...quick question. How is strength my weakness? Somebody explain that to me.”

The whole movie goes on to explain that to Fridge, so that when he returns to the world, he understands that line better than he ever dreamed. He’s changed. He’s not the same person. It’s like he has been re-born.

We’ve heard this story before.

That is what the movie is about. The movie is explaining this to all of us. While we laugh at Kevin Hart's perfect timing and way of telling jokes, the message of how strength can be your greatest weakness is being broadcast and decoded to us through body humor.

Strength is his weakness. Why? Because in the "Fridge" character we see a high school life where he uses his strength as a hammer to get what he wants, to have his way. He has a weakling do his homework for him. He is above the crowd because of his athletic prowess. All four characters in the movie have something similar happening, but Fridge is my focus here, even though I can relate to any of them. The story is a process of purgation of the high schoolers’ flawed thinking.

Jumanji is a story about recognizing our weaknesses and coming to live with them, to embrace our inadequacies, to be at peace with our flaws without celebrating our flaws. In religious terms, this is called sin. Yes, we’re already going there. The movie is explaining to us why we need redemption, why we need salvation. Sorry, I had to go there - to the “s” word - sin. But if you’ve listened to any of this series, you know the “s” word is going to come up every time.

We don't like the word "sin" today, but whatever euphemism is used, the best word to describe our weaknesses and flaws is sin. Why is that? Because these weaknesses all drive the behavior of the high school students to do things that they don't want to do. They are all hiding behind some smokescreen to tell themselves and the world that they have no weakness. None are being honest and open, none want to be exposed, and these weaknesses bring all of them to after-school detention, which is a metaphor for how we put ourselves in our own prisons through our identity lies. We choose to live in hell because of what we cannot give up, or refuse to admit. Jumanji is similar to Dante’s experience in the Inferno. The characters must go all the way down, all the way to the bottom of self-knowledge, in order to get to the mountain. They cannot discover their weakness, their flaw, their fig leaf, unless they experience humiliation and learn that what they have been gripping so tightly is a handle attached to nothing.

Finally, I can get to the Jesus part, because obviously I’ve been leading up to it for some time. Yes, Jumanji and Jesus. We’ve arrived.

There are two scenes that I’m going to tie together where the question of “how is strength my weakness?” is answered. The first is with Moses in the desert, the second is with Jesus and Nicodemus.

In his clandestine meeting with Nicodemus, Jesus explains what he is here on earth to accomplish. This is the conversation which surrounds the famous verse known as John 3:16, perhaps the only Bible verse that many American football fans have memorized or are at least aware of by chapter and verse. Keith Urban also has a song quoting this verse, titled John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16, so it’s the kind of Bible verse that both cafeteria Christians and diehard Biblical scholars can chat about together. It’s good common ground. The Moses story is less well-known, but it goes directly along with the conversation with Nicodemus.

In this conversation, Jesus drops a reference to a scene from the Old Testament book of Numbers. The story is one where the people of Israel have rejected God, and God has sent fiery snakes to bite them as punishment. So we’re off to a good plot right away because we have whining, rejection, anger, conflict, betrayal, complaining, and writhing pain. The Israelites in the desert have similarities to the video game exiles in Jumanji.

Since Nicodemus is a well-read Pharisee, he knows the story. Jesus just has to mention this snaky scene and he knows what the reference means. But we need to go into it a bit, since it’s not as well known today. This snake biting story in Numbers has everything that makes for a good HBO series, but it’s much better because all of this happens in about five to ten sentences. Also, there are only three characters, so we don’t have to waste twenty hours of our lives getting through a three year slow-burning series that could have been one episode. I think that’s what I like about the Bible more and more. So much is said in terse, short verses, because the ancient sacred writers didn’t have endless paper or scrolling screens to waste words on. The sacred writers had to be concise, unlike me.

In their suffering, the bitten people ask Moses for help. The snake bites are killing them. Moses is instructed by God to put a bronze statue of a “fiery serpent” onto a “pole,” and the pole is lifted up for all to see, and those who look upon the statue will live. Now a pole in ancient times had to be wood, since they didn’t have steel or aluminum, so yes, it’s a piece of wood….like…the cross. But I won’t go there. Let’s just leave that part alone for now. Moving on.

Lifting a bronze serpent on a wood pole, hmm…this seems strange. This feels like an idol of some kind. We have a statue lifted up on a pole. The people look to a statue, and it’s a statue of a snake, and they are healed. We’re all quite familiar with what snakes tend to represent in the Bible. A serpent is the evil one in the Garden of Eden, although I’ve read that a better translation might be “shiny one.” Whatever animal talked to Eve, the best representation of it seems to be a snake or a serpent. And now Moses is telling people to…look at a snake to be healed?

This scene in Numbers was very confusing to me. But when read along with the conversation of Nicodemus in John 3, I can start to understand the layers of meaning in both of these stories. I’ll probably spend far too long (as usual) linking Jumanji to Nicodemus to Moses, but here we are, and now I have to keep going.

First, what is happening in the desert with Moses and these fiery serpents? (Numbers 21:4-9)

The fiery serpents bite and kill many of the Israelites in the desert, who were complaining about God, and were wondering (once again) why Moses has brought them to the desert in the first place. This is like the leitmotif of the Old Testament, like a background song on a long movie, singing, “Why God? Why Moses? Why didn’t we just stay in Egypt and eat and drink and remain slaves?”

The people forget quickly, like they always do, because the draw of comfort and ease makes them angry at God. Whenever any difficulty arises, they reject God or they blame God for their troubles. However, some of the people appeal to Moses for help, because these snakebites are killing them. It’s really bad. But they appeal to Moses in an important way. God shows mercy, and tells Moses to construct a serpent out of bronze and raise it up on a pole. Those who were bitten by snakes are to look up at the pole, and they will be healed.

What? Come again?

This is one of the strangest Old Testament stories of all to me. This was one of those bizarre stories that eroded my faith because in about two paragraphs, this story seems to toss out a lot of magical, confusing, weird, and conflicting messages. Its seemed as stable as Uranium-239. I just could never make sense of this bronze serpent story.

This “serpent-on-pole” is often depicted in art as a cross with a snake draped over it. This could make sense. To hold the serpent on a pole, if it was just set on the pole, it would need a kind of crossbar to hold it, or obviously it would just fall to the ground. However, it's not clear because the text says, "set it on a pole." This could mean literally a long stick that the serpent is wrapped around, but could also mean a cross shape. Obviously, in my bias, I would prefer to think of this image as a cross with the serpent hung upon it, but I'm not sure that the book of Numbers says that. In any case, I don't think it matters, because the meaning of what the story is about dovetails with what Jesus talks about with Nicodemus. That is what's important.

The shape of the pole is speculation and not necessary for me to dwell on. This is a common danger for me, to start interpreting things when I have no language background and not enough Biblical knowledge. Sometimes I can get drawn into symbols more than I should, because digging into the religious truth is where the Eureka! moment usually happens. These discoveries of meaning in the text are more important than certain details. I enjoy the allegory and historical and literal reading, because all are necessary to read the Bible, but to me those often are arrows and clues to the timeless religious truths, and perhaps most importantly as the pointers to Jesus, and our ultimate need for a savior.

When the Israelites are bitten by the poisonous snakes, they suffer. Many of them die. In pain, they cry out for help. The venom is in them, causing fever or swelling or some kind of medical emergency. They are stuck in a kind of hell that has no escape and no cure.

The snakes were sent as a punishment from God, which modern people always loathe to read because it seems like the petty punishing God, and not the merciful magnanimous God. What I love about these stories is the movement along the slider bar of justice and mercy, where we can see both in play. We want the God who tells us, “It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.” Of course we do! Who doesn’t want that? I remember eating a freezy-pop as a kid before asking if I could have one. Or I would have a cookie halfway eaten, and then stand near a hall corner to ask for permission to eat a cookie, holding the cookie behind my back like crossed fingers. Plus, I was going to eat the rest of it regardless of whether or not I had permission to do so.

However the situation came to be for the Israelites, there is suffering and they are desperate for relief. Let’s just focus on that. There is pain. There is suffering, and this is just like the world that we live in. We can relate to this pain, even if ours did not come from a snakebite. We are in the situation of suffering and pain. We all experience this, we feel it. We wish things were otherwise. Some pain is more acute, some is more chronic, but we all have it.

The question is: what do we do about it?

There is no escape, there is no free pass, and there is pain enough for all. This is what the characters in Jumanji come to realize, very quickly, once the game is eating them. They can’t escape, they can’t hide behind their muscles, or phones, or education, or uniqueness. They can’t hide at all. To do nothing is to die. They first learn that their instinct for survival is strong.

Of course, this problem of pain is the number one argument against believing in a loving God, which is the same today as when the Israelites were bitten in the desert by the fiery snakes. This has not changed. Suffering makes us question a loving, creator God just as much today as it did 3,000 years ago. So what happens with the snakes?

The snakes bite the people and there is much suffering. The people go to Moses and they ask him for help. What's important is to realize how they ask for help. They say, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord." In other words, they ask with humility. Recognizing their error, is the most important step here. The suffering in the desert has shown their weakness in faith for God. So that is the first weakness. But the snakes have given them far more pain, and renders them desperate. They are weaker than they ever realized. When they were in comfort, they were able to be bold and bossy. When they felt strong, they rejected God. That’s what we tend to do. When we have success, we congratulate ourselves on our good deeds and skills. When there is some discomfort, we lose patience and blame God. But when the real pain begins, we realize how small and helpless we are. When the surgery fails, we need help beyond human hands. When the plane is about to crash, we need a savior. When our best laid plans fall to pieces, we realize that our former struggles were like mosquito bites compared to the deadly snake venom. What seemed difficult before appears minor in hindsight. The hardships in the desert were discomforts. The snake bites are death. We reject God when we feel strong enough to carry on by ourselves, but we run to God when we have nowhere else to turn.

In the desert, it is their perceived strength that causes them to reject God, but oddly enough, it is the awareness of their weakness that draws them to the truth, to the light. Knowledge of our weaknesses can become our greatest strength and, unfortunately, suffering is sometimes the only way to become alerted to the illusion of strength.

All of the characters in Jumanji must become opened to their shortcomings. They must shed their idea of personal salvation, of their illusory faith in pure individualism. I would go so far as to say it dives into the problem of an old heresy called Pelagianism, because what the characters learn in the game is that they were hiding in the real world. They believed their imagined comfort was protecting them, but it was really a kind of prison. They thought their strengths were guarding them but they were shackling them. What they valued in the real world of high school was perfectly useless in the video game. They learned that they cannot save themselves. They are suffering…but they are not suffering alone. They are together. Each person finds that his worldly strength is suddenly his biggest weakness. This is what happens to the Israelites who are bitten by the snakes in the desert. They cannot save themselves from suffering. No one can do that.

How can they be saved? First, they have to believe that the game is real. They have to have a faith that this is life and death at stake. They have to realize that this game doesn't require registration and fees. No, this game will eat them if they don't play. They are in the pit and the dragon is real. So by the threat of losing their lives, they begin to play, particularly once they learn there is only a few do-overs. There is mercy, but only three times. They have three lives before they are stuck there forever, or dead and gone completely. 

Second, they need to work together to be saved. There are several turning points in the movie where instead of trying to dominate each other, they submit to one another. This is where they stop hating each other and start to slowly love one another.

But there is a third thing, something beyond their own willpower and skills. There is something beyond their cooperation. Even as a group they cannot leave the game without some mysterious force to grant them their exit.

Jumanji is not only about self-discovery of flaws. It's not only about loving one another. The key element that is less obvious is that there is a mystery. There is something higher and unexplained in the movie. Even when they are able to restore the jewel to the sacred mountain, they can't save themselves. In fact, it's not even really clear how the magic works that brought them into the game. There is something else at work.

Yes, they have to perform heroic actions to escape, but more importantly they must believe that the actions will save them, that the steps they follow will return them to their high school real-world lives. They cannot get out of this hell without faith in whatever created the game. They must believe in some power that is never fully known or shown in the movie. They must truly believe that they cannot reach home again unless they get a sacred jewel to a religious shrine on a mountain. Once this single jewel is in its rightful place, its proper place, then they have to shout a sacred word. They have to believe it, do it, and only then will they be saved. The game is the same as life and we cannot be our own saviors, neither by ourselves, nor in a group. There must be something higher to save us. But we’ll never know that unless we experience suffering. Without pain, we never see the way, never understand the problem.

Jesus tells Nicodemus: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

Could this statement not also be swapped with “fiery snakes”? Because in the desert, God sent the fiery snakes - it explicitly says that God sent the snakes to bite the people, to cause them to suffer. Why? Because otherwise they would never understand that their imagined strength was their biggest weakness. They must be weak, and know it in their bones, in order to believe, in order to escape the pain. This is what is so hard to accept today, but it was just as hard to accept back then.

God sent the snakes, which seems kind of cruel. But then he tried a more direct method. He came down here himself, not to bite us but to show us. He came to save us. The painful snakebite method worked, but we so quickly forgot that he had to keep sending signs and prophets, and still we failed to understand. He tried telling us through various efforts and signs. The snakes in the desert is just one of his attempts to reach us, but we always choose to reject him as soon as things settle down. The fear model works, but was not effective for the long term.

The plan all along was love. He showed us the way, and it was intended to reach everyone on earth. He sent his Son to show love and mercy. Instead of him biting us, he allowed us to bite him. And bite we did. He came to us in love, like the loving father running out to meet the Prodigal Son. We learned that it’s far easier to understand this message through seeing Jesus on the cross than through trying to understand snakebites in the desert. But instead of embracing God when he came to us, like an angry mob, we arrested and tortured and killed him, only to realize that whether he bites us, or we bite him, he loses no power. He cannot be defeated. Whether he is the biter or the one bitten, in either direction, God is always the healer, the redeemer, the savior, and the answer to everything we are searching for.

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