I have just witnessed one of the most frightening things in my life. My heart is racing, my skin is clammy, my muscles are tense with fear.
Jesus.
So there I was, enjoying my Christmas vacation. It was just another Sunday, nothing special. I spent the evening relaxing with my girlfriend. I got home ready to drift off to a nice quiet sleep. As usual, I had a snack, and flipped through some channels on the TV before going to bed. I suppose that was mistake number one.
Jesus.
I stopped on one of those joyous movie channels. An interesting Sci-fi flick was on, and so I started watching. It was the movie Event Horizon. It’s a fairly recent movie, and I remember seeing previews for it. It’s basically about a futuristic space ship that has some fancy gravitational drive. It was supposed to be a time machine type thing–Einstein stuff. But it ended up traveling to hell. Nice premise, huh?
Jesus.
So this ship is sitting there dead in space, and along comes the rescue crew. They go in to see what’s going on, and weird stuff starts happening. People begin to see their worst nightmares. The ship had in some way come alive, and was sucking them into hell.
Jesus.
As the people were taken over by hell (or however you want to describe it) their eyeballs were ripped out. Pretty, huh? The cool, Hollywood line was, “Where we’re going you won’t need these.”
Jesus.
The only redeeming part of the movie was when the ‘devil’ asked the main character, “Don’t you see?” and in perfect drama he said, “Yes,” pushed the detonator and saved the rest of the crew from hell. If only it were that simple.
Jesus.
The scene invokes in my mind the image that salvation through Jesus Christ allows us to see. When we accept Christ, we are no longer blind in the darkness of the world (the movie referred to hell as ‘the dark’), we have the light of life.
Jesus.
The most horrifying part of the movie was how they continually depicted hell. They would flash scenes of torment, gruesome agony, suffering. It was like actually seeing the visual images described in Dante’s Inferno. It was sick. It was twisted. And it made me want to puke.
Jesus.
The worst part is that I know that was the mere invention of men. That was what some sick, twisted person thought hell would be like–glorified in visual form for all to see. The heart wrenching reality is that hell is much worse than any of us could possibly imagine.
Jesus.
After seeing enough of the movie to be sickened, I had to stick it out, and see what happened. I wanted to see how Hollywood brought some sense of hope back to the movie. Their only answer was nightmares. Another rescue ship comes to save the three remaining members, all unconscious. When one of them comes to, she sees the ‘devil’ character as one of the rescuers–but it was only a nightmare. The movie ends with the real rescue crew trying to calm her down. Leaving us with the satisfaction that we escaped hell, but not the disturbing reality of our own nightmares. Thanks.
Jesus.
You’re probably wondering why I keep repeating ‘Jesus’ after every paragraph. The reason is that I actually listened to the sermon for a few minutes this morning. My pastor was talking about the new life that can be found in Jesus. During part of his message he was talking about the power in the name of Jesus Christ, and he asked the congregation to say the name Jesus out loud several times. I thought it was kind of hoaky at the time, but now I’m beginning to see the power in the name.
Jesus.
Fear is trying to grip my heart right now, and I know as I shut off the lights and climb into bed, the horrifying scenes from that movie will flash into my head. The name of Jesus is the only thing that can free me from Satan’s garbage. You may think I’m nuts, but you just go ahead and think that. I know what I’m doing.
Jesus.
I’m shocked at the way that movie ended. Heck, I’m appalled at the whole stinkin’ movie. But the lack of hope in the ending frightens me. In reality, pushing a button and saying a suave line just in time isn’t going to save anyone from hell. Jesus Christ is the only thing that will save anyone from hell.
Jesus.
Event Horizon. Awful movie. Don’t ever watch it. Jesus. Wonderful name. Cling to it.
Jesus.
There’s just something calming and reassuring about that name. Something that will enable me to sleep tonight, and will get me through the rest of my days. If you still think I’m nuts, ask me about this guy named Jesus.
Oh, you might find this interesting. While trying to copy this pondering from Word (where I type stuff) to Notepad (where I do my HTML editing) Notepad decided to say, “Not enough memory available to complete this operation.” It happened right when I tried to paste the part where I explained why I was repeating the word Jesus. I think Notepad was having an error because a document can only be so long. I’m guessing I exceeded that. Odd that I’ve never had this problem before. Coincidence? No, I don’t think so.