Manifest 828

Greetings Warriors and Scholars.

Earlier this week I sat down with my Mom to watch the pilot episode of "Manifest." A new drama with a time travel intro and very little else to catch my attention, aside from Josh Dallas of Once Upon a Time as a lead actor. What I found was more mystery than the trailers let on and a show much more focused on spiritual development than I expected. Sit down ladies and gentlemen it is time for some geek theology!

SPOILERS AHEAD

The show begins with a family getting on a plane. The family consists of 2 older parents, a son named Ben Stone (played by Josh Dallas) with his wife Grace (Athena Karkanis) and their twin children. Also along is Ben's sister, Michaela Stone, played by Melissa Roxburgh. As the family talks we soon see that the matriarch of the family is a believer, especially when she quotes Romans 8:28 while talking to Michaela about the guy who wants to marry her and other life stuff.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."          Romans 8:28

With the plane overbooked the family splits up with the older siblings and the brothers son staying behind for another flight. What we then find out is that the son, 8 years old or so, has cancer. Soon they are on the plane and someone else is working on a research paper.

With some interesting symmetry and connection, the flight they take is labeled as Flight 828. There was a major shift of turbulence on the flight but nothing else was unusual. Everyone on the flight is confused when they are held back upon landing. This state of confusion continues as they try to come back to life, family and friends. Although they left the vacation spot and went straight to New York, the flight has arrived late by about 5 and a half years. I have had late flights before, but that takes the cake.

We find out that Michaela is a member of the police force, as is her boyfriend who is now married. The twin sister is now five years older. The woman with the research work comes to find her work in a clinical trial for cancer treatment. That is not where the 828 issue stops. Through the show Michaela and then Ben each start hearing very clear instructions to do different things. Michaela helps a bus driver stop right before a kid runs into the road. They let 2 dogs loose after this constant push to "set them free" but later on, when going to apologize for the gate breaking with her Detective ex-boyfriend, Michaela finds two missing girls being held captive by the guy who owned the dogs. Finally, all the passengers find themselves drawn back to the plane only to watch it explode.

This show works on one single issue: can bad things happen for good reasons? As a Christian, I trust God to use all things, good and bad, for His purposes. But in life that that belief is consistently challenged. It often feels like just another platitude being pushed out to try and make me feel alright when so many things are so wrong. Here we find a mainstream show that is daring to ask that question. Is this just a platitude? They just happen to be using a thin line of fantasy in their questioning.

This is not surprising to many of us. Just like all fiction, fantasy and science fiction are all about the human experience. Why do we think this way? How would that change us? The show is not titled "Manifest" because of a list of passengers. It is titled "Manifest" because something is manifesting in the lives of the passengers to bring about change in a world that is hurting. What happened to the flight? Why did it happen? What will the result be?

I firmly trust that God is working for our good. I don't think He wants bad to happen, but when it does He makes better people out of us through them. I can tell you that when I was rejected by a girl in college it probably kept me from experiencing a bad relationship. Think about the crucifixion. It was the worst thing ever. The Son of God killed by His own people. Yet through that we find Jesus taking our sin on Himself so we can have a healthy relationship with God. He took a horrible thing and used it for good. Then He did the best come-back ever by resurrecting from the dead.

In this show, a time travel experience and a new power of knowledge are being used to ask if bad really can be used for good. Along with that, other questions seem to be getting explored about family, faith and destiny. While I don't expect a perfect Biblical lesson in each episode, I plan to keep watching and see where it goes. Will you be watching?

Kryptonians, Time Travel, and God's Supremacy

Greeetings Warriors and Scholars!

Found on IMDB.com

I finally saw the Season 3 finale of Supergirl. At the core of this episode is her heart to bring freedom and act mercifully. Spoilers ahead. While facing three Kryptonian women and a final form of Reign, things don't go as planned. 2 members of her team are killed and she immediately regrets how the fight went. Feeling compelled to press on, she does something a bit to Christopher Reeve. She goes back in time by using a Legionnaire ring and a disturbance in space. Christopher Reeve's Superman did it in his first movie by flying around the world in the opposite direction of rotation really, really fast. His goal was also to save a life, that of Lois Lane. I am not sure that would work!

Time travel is something of an enigma. We know we are moving in a direction in time but there is no evidence we can move back in time or hit a fast forward button to see what is ahead. There is a Psalm that says that 1,000 years to us is like 1 day to God and there are a couple times in the Old Testament when God does actions that would suggest moving in time or slowing it down. Or in the least that He is controlling the celestial bodies that we use to understand the passage of time.

In Joshua 10 we find a story with a battle that Israel fights against several armies at once. In verses 13 and 14 there is this song and a quote from another record of Joshua asking God to hold the sun still for the remainder of the battle. According to Joshua it stands still for a full day, making the daylight last twice as long. The other document is quoted as saying there has never been another day like it.

In 2 Kings there is a story about King Hezekiah. He is sick and at first God says "Put your things in order" but then later decides to heal him and add 15 years to his life. Then, as a confirmation, Isaiah asks if he would like the shadow on some steps to go forward 10 steps or backward 10 steps. King Hezekiah is not foolish and realizing that forward would be "simple" he asks for the sun to go back 10 steps and it happens.

What we have in these events is 2 pictures of God operating outside of our universe to affect it. He is essentially affecting the rotation of the Earth in front of human eyes. I remember being at an outdoor concert a few years ago in Muskegon, MI at Unity Fest. There was a moment during a worship song when the sun, which was setting, got brighter and then went back to normal. Say what you want, but it was a beautiful moment. There is also an old story about the band Degarmo and Key. They were short on money and could not pay the band members. Sitting at a house meeting together they prayed and as they ended there was a knock on the door. A church had felt called to take an offering for them and the pastor was hand delivering it to them. That money had to be collected and he had to get in the car and leave before they started praying.

God is the creator of all things. Colossians 1:16-17, speaking of Jesus, says:

"For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

Time travel is not a normal thing for us. We don't get to go back and redo our actions like Supergirl did in that episode or as Bill Murray does in "Groundhog Day". But God is so much bigger than our time or our sin. He has already paved the way for redemption in Jesus and from time to time He does like to play around with physics. We call that a miracle. 

Best Laid Time Travel Plans

Greetings Warriors and Scholars!

Found on the IMDB page.

Have you been watching Timeless? I have. At first I felt like it was a little bit predictable and sometimes it is, but the quality of acting and intriguing portrayals of historical figures with the mystery of Rittenhouse have kept me watching. Most sci-fi shows nowadays are very dark, apparently since BSG was rebooted the networks think everything has to be dark. It is refreshing to see a lighter science fiction show with nuance that recognizes dark situations.

So essentially in Timeless we have a team of 3 people trying to stop another team from changing time. One team takes the stolen "Mothership" back in time and the other team, at the actual HQ, sees where it has gone and takes the "Lifeboat" back to keep the timeline from being altered and/or stop the thieves.

Spoilers Ahead.

Last night's episode was a little different. Wyatt (Matt Lanter) and Rufus (Malcolm Barrett) went back to change time instead of protect it. Wyatt's wife was killed before he had been pulled into the program and he wanted to make sure the man who did that never existed. When they got back, they found out it had not worked. The man did not exist, but his wife had still been killed.

"We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall."                    Prov. 16:33 NLT

The reality is we can not fix everything ourselves. We have tried for years to fix things. The problem is we are a sinful race.

"Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil." James 4:13-16, NIV

Wyatt thought he knew what would happen when he got back. He thought he would go back to his find his wife there to welcome him. It did not work. Maybe the man who said he had killed her lied, or maybe Rittenhouse had been behind the murder somehow even from the start. His idea, which had even lead to a man's death as well as erasing one man from history, simply did not work.

But if you notice we are not told to never have any plans or that our ideas or points are useless. "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." We are supposed to be part of the solution. In fact James goes on to say that failing to do something we know we should do is sin. The question is more of an issue of whether we are cooperating with God and trusting Him or if we are trying to fix it on our own.

We might yet see Lucy get her sister back and Wyatt get his wife back. Or they might find that tampering with time is never going to work. But what about your life? Have you been seeking God's direction? Are you cooperating with Him? Why would you want to do it on your own and without Him?

God's Time and Legacy

One of my newest game purchases was Legacy: Gears of Time. This game is all about time travel and the goal of influencing technology in the past. It is very strategic. In order to effectively run some tech you have to make sure that certain prerequisites are set further in the past. It is a fairly quick game running in 4 rounds of 4 turns per player.

The only luck in this game comes in with the draw. Aside from that it is all about your own decisions. You have to pay for establishing cards with other cards, so it takes a lot of figuring to make it work.

I don't think the Holy Spirit needs luck...but I do think He works in a similar prerequisite standpoint. I think He tries to get certain works done in our lives before doing certain other works. This can be so frustrating for us though. Sometimes we feel like we are stuck and like God is doing nothing while in reality He is doing many things to change us or challenge us.

Take for example the perception of His work in revelation that we call progressive revelation. Essentially this suggests that God revealed certain pieces of His plan and redemption over time depending on when man was ready to hear them. So Jesus said some things. Paul was informed of other things through the Holy Spirit; and other things were established before either of them through the prophets of old like Jeremiah. Between the Old Testament and the New Testament there was about 400 years of waiting. Think about this. 400 years with no prophetic word or written work of God. Imagine the frustration of waiting for the Messiah while various human empires and kingdoms on Earth kept fighting for superiority. It's no wonder that people were confused about the role of the Messiah when He came. Yet He did come; and Romans tells us it was at just the right time.

God stands outside of time. I wonder what it looks like from that perspective. Seeing all of eternity and history from there. He goes and wiggles something in the 10 century BC, fixes something twenty years after this writing, and then plays around in the year of my birth. Is that what it is like? I don't know. But I know He is trustworthy (more so than us players messing with stuff when we play Legacy). I know sometimes He sits with me when life is terrible and walks with me through it; such as when I went through some rejection by women. Other times He changes things; such as when He healed me of a headache when i needed to concentrate on the English classes I was giving tests to in Amman.

I remember times when I only handled certain things well because I had already learned something somewhere else.

God is creating a legacy throughout time. He wants you to be part of this legacy. All you have to do is ask Him to include you and believe in Him. He will challenge you to change some things; yet you will be part of a much larger legacy and a much more amazing one than you can create on your own.