It’s so weird because one of the movie franchises I love the most is the Twilight series. I’m 47 years old. I’m a school teacher with a husband and two teenaged kids. My life is spent being responsible and working hard and raising kids and generally adulting to the nth degree, so why in the world do I enjoy watching a second-hand cringefest full of angsty teens, terrible acting, and some truly spectacular mental health issues as the metaphorical cherry on these dumpster dive sundaes? They’re an absolute affront to any good taste that I have so WHY??
After not giving it a lot of thought and listening to my feelings, oh, entirely, I’ve decided that it’s the idea of being consumed by another person. The idea that fate’s hand selected another person to be your perfect match and that person is fully and completely focused on loving you, protecting you, ensuring your well being. Furthermore, that person is stronger, faster, more beautiful, more capable, and better equipped than any threat that might endanger you. It’s being wrapped in a cocoon of love and protection, like a plant wrapped against winter storms.
But it’s not security, no. Because there are enemies out there that threaten. There is danger and times that the enemy appears to be winning. But Edward and Bella have people who are like minded and care about them and help them through all the danger and struggles. So it’s struggle, but with the knowledge that the good guy wins and everything is predestined to work out. Bella gets to become a vampire, a life where she is no longer weak and clumsy and finally feels like she fits and is exceptional. In spite of some self-destructive decisions and some straying from his destiny, Edward eventually gets the girls, plural, because vamps aren’t supposed to have kids, yet Bella somehow survives the ordeal of giving birth to his half-vamp baby and the baby manages to not get eaten by Jacob wolf. How? Because Jacob’s attachment to Bella the entire time was his connection to the not-yet-conceived Renesmee. Everything comes together in the end to create a beautiful life, the battles won, and everything that was a mystery is brought to light. The consuming passions and struggles and threat of all that’s unknown ends in consuming love and good and security. Really, in the end, what’s not to like?
I didn’t realize it till recently, but this storyline is stolen from an ancient story. It is stolen from Jesus’ story with us. Hear me out. Jesus was so consumed with His passion to redeem an unexceptional, bumbling, unfaithful group of humans that He walked this earth and died a horrible death on the cross. In that death, He saved us from a fate worse than death, an eternity in hell. God’s own hand selected Him to be our perfect match and redeemer and He is, first and foremost devoted to God and HIs glory, but He is also fully and completely focused on loving us, protecting us, and ensuring our well being. He is stronger, faster, more beautiful, more capable, and better equipped than any threat that might endanger us. We are in a cocoon of His love and protection, like a plant wrapped against winter storms.
And while there is eternal security, there is not earthly security. There is an enemy out there that threatens. He tempts us and thwarts us and causes struggles. There is danger and times that the enemy appears to be winning. Sometimes, like Edward, we fall to the temptations or lack of faith and we make some self-destructive decisions and stray from the path of our destinies. In the end, though, if we are consumed with that relationship with Jesus, everything is predestined to work out in the end. We struggle but we attain gifts like peace, joy, love, self control. We get to be part of a like-minded group of individuals in a church and work to overcome the danger and struggles. We get to grow into the selves we are truly meant to be. Everything comes together in the end to create a beautiful life, the battles won, and everything that was a mystery is brought to light. The consuming passions and struggles and threat of all that’s unknown ends in consuming love and good and security in Heaven. Unlike Bella, this is not the work of a couple of days and magical vamp blood to make us whole. It is the work of a lifetime with the blood of Jesus to cover our mistakes and make us whole and one with Him again.
I feel like I could go on forever with the analogies. And Twilight is not the only franchise to have stolen this ancient story. We can see it many times over in many different interpretations. But in the end it all comes back to Jesus. He is the way and the truth and the life. Through Him, if we choose Him, we are consumed with something higher than ourselves, an adventure that makes us more than we ever thought we could be, and that is predestined to end with our happily ever after in every way we never though possible. So even though I’m a responsible adult who has no business loving a cheesy teen love story, I don’t think that’s what it’s really about. I think it’s really about the love story of Jesus with us.
Five Dog Bend 