The Doctor Forgives

Greetings Scholars and Warriors!

Spoilers ahead if you are not kept up with our favorite timelord. 

Well, that was one amazing episode of Doctor Who that aired this last weekend. We find the Doctor out to deal with a separatist faction of the shape shifting Zygons who are upset about the deal with U.N.I.T. You know, the deal made in the "The Day of the Doctor".

He eventually gets their leader, who has taken the form of Clara. She has this box in front of her that might let all Zygons reveal themselves, or might be more harmful. U.N.I.T. also has a box, one that might let out a gas that will destroy all Zygons. What does the Doctor say? Well, here it is in this nice meme:

Sorry, I have forgotten who made this meme! If you find out, please let me know! Anyway, the Doctor asks her to do one amazing thing: forgive. He asks her to forgive all of the transgressions she feels are coming at her and to live in peace. "Bonnie", the lead separatist Zygon, says she can't do that. That the humans would never let her go after what she has done.

The Doctor's response? "That is what all of you always say...but guess what, I forgive you." You see, the Doctor is able to forgive because he has been there. He has participated in a huge war that ravaged a universe and he has come so close to pushing a button himself. Then, he wipes some memories of those around them, but not Bonnie. He wants her to remember. She is stuck as "one of them" now. Oh, and he makes a comment at one point about the "other 15 times" the cease fire has been in danger.

Will you break the cycle around you? Will you forgive others? Forgiveness is an attitude and it takes work and time to live it out, but you can get there. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us that God will forgive us only as we forgive others (see Matthew 6).

I am not hitting all of the nuances of this scene. You really should watch it for yourself if you can find it online or catch a rerun. 

Galavant and Reconciliation

photo from IMDB

Galavant was interesting. I had been excited for this because I really enjoy the work of Zachery Levi, who is a known Christian but also starred as the lead role in “Chuck” on NBC. It started out rather melancholy compared with my expectations. A lot of the jokes were sexual in nature and I don’t appreciate that, but some of it was funny and the story was interesting. It has a cheesy charm to it.

Galavant was a hero who lost his muster when his girlfriend was kidnapped to marry a king. He went to rescue here and she basically chose to stay with the king for the fame and money. He then went through a time of drunkenness to deal with this pain. The king then conquered another kingdom and the princess of that kingdom comes to get Galavant to come help with a claim that this ex-girlfriend was wanting him to come for her, thus getting our hero to jump back in to heroism.

Now, there were a lot of twists and turns over the 4 episodes of “season 1” (which was supposed to be a minie-series; so a “season” is a little odd). I won’t go into all of them, but one peaked my interest.

***Spoiler***

Eventually the wife of this king betrays him. In her betrayal, Galavant and the King start to become friends, even drinking together. This reminded me of a verse from Psalm 23:

          

     “You lay a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

This verse speaks to the peace we find in God, yet I have, a few times, wondered if this was pointing to something greater than that: a reconciliation.

God is all about reconciliation. He even went so far as to let his one and only Son, Jesus the Christ, die on a cross to bring reconciliation between God and man. He wants this to come to all of us. Jesus himself, while teaching on prayer, told us we will be forgiven as we forgive others.

I won't fool you, reconciliation is a hard thing. I am no expert in it and I am not always so good at it, but Jesus is good at it and He would love to help you with it.

Overall, I found Galavant to be entertaining. If you like musicals, it is worth watching and there are some interesting plot twists in it. It is a story of restoration and I think it does have some interesting lessons to be learned.