Watching the Dark Knight last night brought about a few realizations about the reality of life and man’s capacity to do evil and be evil. Batman’s archenemy Bane thought what he was doing was good. Even Bruce Wayne’s business partner Miranda thought what she was doing was good. Commissioner Gordon lived and kept a lie to protect his own legacy, Bruce Wayne would go back from living for himself and living for others.
It is what we hear today.
“Respect what I believe.”
“What is bad for you might not be bad for me.”
“There is no absolute truth”
This kind of thinking has brought us trouble. Because if we start thinking that there are no absolutes, that there is no biblical standard, then we can start believing what we want. The liberal thinkers would not agree with me because they want diversity in absolutes. You cannot do that to absolute truths and standard.Doing so makes truth relative.
One of the most tragic thing that happened during the premiere of the Dark Knight Rises was the shooting that happened in Aurora, just a few miles from Columbine High School. According to press reports, a 24-year-old man burst into the crowded theater, wearing a gas mask and carrying an arsenal. After deploying what is believed to be tear gas, he opened fire with a shotgun, a rifle, and two handguns. At least 12 people are dead, and dozens are injured, many critically.
Most of us will ask why? Why the evil? We try to decipher man’s capacity to do evil but at the same time deny that we are capable of doing that kind of evil. Some also question the evilness but at the same time celebrate sin and its effects. There has never been a time where biblical standards are questioned and even mocked as old fashioned, moralistic and out dated. I think we can mock and disobey it all we want but the payoff is the increase of wickedness and the neglect of God’s grace for our lives. Who needs God’s grace when we can define our own morality?
My greatest fear in life is that I know I am capable of such evil. This is the reality we should all face. There is a BANE inside of us. There is a Murderer inside of us. There is a selfish, relativist, rebellious person inside of us and no amount of law, superheroes and even law enforcement can transform us. It might restraint us for awhile but it will reach a tipping point.
Thus I preach, teach the grace of God and the gospel. It is why I know apart from Christ and His grace – I am guilty of my sin. Only Christ can transform us – prisons won’t, anger management seminars won’t, moral restraints and law enforcements won’t. We’ve tried it for thousands of years and it is not working. Only Jesus period and that is my only answer.
Theologian Henri Blocher explains this truth vividly in these words:
“Evil is conquered as evil because God turns it back upon itself. He makes the supreme crime, the murder of the only righteous person, the very operation that abolishes sin. The maneuver is utterly unprecedented. No more complete victory could be imagined. God responds in the indirect way that is perfectly suited to the ambiguity of evil. He entraps the deceiver in his own wiles. Evil, like a judoist, takes advantage of the power of good, which it perverts; the Lord, like a supreme champion, replies by using the very grip of the opponent.”