Star Wars Theology

My youngest grandchildren, Ethan and Eleni, have been looking forward to Christmas all year long!  Their eager waiting has had nothing to do with Santa Claus or presents under the Christmas tree.  They have been waiting for the new Star Wars Movie.  I think they have already seen it twice. 

This film series has had a long history.  I remember taking my oldest son, Paul, to the first Star Wars Movie in 1977.  I remember taking my youngest son, Luke, and his friend, Tim,  to Star Wars Episode V:  The Empire Strikes Back in 1980.  I recall the many Star Wars action figures,  the X-Wing Fighter, and the AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) and many another Star Wars thing-a-ma-jigs under the Christmas tree in the years that followed.  I think I probably saw other Star Wars episodes with Luke, like The Return of the Jedi in 1983, but my memory is a bit blurry.  In 2015, however, Star Wars came back into my life.  I went to see the Star Wars Movie:  The Force Awakens that year in order to make sense out of the conversations I was then having with my grandson Ethan.

Today I will go see the latest Star Wars Movie episode, The Last Jedi,  so that I can once again carry on an intelligent conversation with Ethan and Eleni, who are very excited and really “into”  Star Wars just now.

Now you may think I have diverged from my Advent thoughts, but I really haven’t at all.  My going to the Star Wars movies in order to understand and “be with” my grandchildren (wherever they are) is precisely what we are told God did that first Christmas long ago—and what God does still.  God still comes to be with us (wherever we are), to understand us, to sit with us, to cry with us, to stand with us, to talk with us.  God came and God comes in Jesus to walk in our steps—not the other way around. 

Ethan & Eleni