I can sense his presence… Episode VII is near and I must go to face him! But first, I must complete my training with the first six episodes.
Last time, we left off at Luke’s poor decision and failure to actually help anyone. Return of the Jedi fast forwards a bit and lets the viewer assume that Luke returned Dagobah to complete his training with Yoda. The first scene involves the whole crew working to save Han Solo.
In “A New Hope,” we saw that Han Solo had some development a something of a conversion. Here we see the completion of that conversion and the redeeming efforts of his friends. It is really Solo’s own fault that he ends up as a decoration on Jabba the Hut’s wall. After all, it was his choice to do business with the criminal and to get himself into the position of being so far in debt. His friends had nothing to do with this debt, and they could probably have managed to help the rebel alliance without him. Instead, the whole group risks their lives to come to the rescue. Why? Well, Lando is probably interested in redeeming himself for his shameful betrayal, but Leia and Luke do it out of love. Leia has a romantic interest, but Luke’s love is one of friendship.
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| “I love you.” |
From a Christian Perspective, its hard not to relate this to the way that Christ entered into our world to save us from a debt of sin that was our own fault. He acted out of Love and, more than merely risking his life, he actually lost it.
In the movie, this rescue cements Solo’s loyalty to working for the good of the whole Galaxy, even at great cost to himself. It also puts an end to Jabba’s criminal empire. On top of that, the whole rescue shows Luke exuding an uncanny confidence even when he is faced with what seems to be certain death. While his “faith” in the Force is not the same thing as Christian Faith in God’s providence, there is some analogy here we can learn from. If Luke can trust an impersonal “energy” to help him do what is Right and Just, how much more should we, who have the promise of Divine Person, trust that God will always provide us a way to seek what is truly Good?
Alright, jumping over to the other end of the movie, we have the long-awaited confrontation between Jedi and Sith which will decide the fate of the whole Galaxy. Will Luke have what it takes to face down the greatest Lightsaber swordsman in the Galaxy, who happens to be his own father? Will he be able to resist their trap to turn him to the Dark Side? The answer, of course, is yes, but that’s not what matters. We should expect that the good guys win in such a story, but the real important part is how he wins – it isn’t with a lightsaber.
In the last post, I noted that Luke was humiliated by his failure to rescue his friends and that this humiliation helped him to embrace the real training needed to win the day. This training was not his ability to fight and external conflict, but an internal one. Luke sense this when he first travels to the Forest Moon and knows that his presence tips off Vader. After some time to reflect, he voices his resolution and the only hope he really has:
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| “Because…there is good in him. I’ve felt it… I can save him. I can turn him back to the good side. I have to try.” |
He actually hopes to turn Vader right away and avoid facing the emperor, but this is naive. When he is brought to the emperor, he has to face a very serious struggle with despair. He holds out pretty well until Vader hones in on Leia, on his sister and implies a threat against her. While it is true that it is good to protect our loved ones, it is just like Satan to hone in on our attachments, even to good things, and use them as wedges to break open our defenses against his temptation. Luke basically caves in, fights his father, and very nearly kills him.
There, standing over his helpless father and hearing the command of the emperor to kill Vader, Luke is unknowingly entering into the very conflict that his father lost many years before when he stood over the helpless Count Dooku. This time, because Luke has hope for his father, because his love for his sister is less selfish, and because he has had the good fortune of being humbled in the past, he definitively casts out the influence of the Dark Side. Even in the face of imminent death, Luke refuses to repay evil for evil. He already took off Vader’s hand, but knew that the repayment, the vengeance, was not satisfying. Now he was prepared to die for the very person who put him in this danger, and even recalls to everyone the idea that there was good in Anakin, that he was a Jedi worthy of the love he is now receiving.
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| “I’ll never turn to the Dark Side… I am a Jedi… like my father before me.” |
It is this refusal that actually defeats the Emperor. In that moment, he senses his powerlessness over Luke and has to face the fact that he cannot actually control others. In this moment of weakness, he turns to rage and tries to kill Luke. It is this uncontrolled rage and cruelty that finally overthrows the whole wicked Empire. It is this moment of disillusioned cruelty that finally turns Vader back into Anakin Skywalker. This was a conversion begun by Obi-Wan’s sacrifice and nurtured by learning of his son. Finally, moved by his son’s hope for himself and by a hidden paternal instinct, Anakin hears his son’s cry for help and turns on the emperor, finally fulfilling his destiny as the chosen one who was to destroy the Sith.
And that’s really what it boils down to in the end in real life. The battle to defeat evil is never won with brute force, although this is sometimes a component. The only way to defeat evil is to first defeat it in oneself and, through hope, love, and witness to others, to seek to bring conversion to those under the grasp of evil. This is not an easy witness, and can often involve suffering and death for the one bearing witness, but our history is full of such witnesses and their success stories.
Well, that’s all I’ll say about the old movies. So what will Episode VII bring us? Some speculate that Luke will have turned to the Dark Side. I hope this is not true, because it would greatly undermine the depth of what we’ve seen in this final battle in Episode VI. It would devalue just how thoroughly Luke had to reject the Dark Side in this movie in order to win back his father. But, I’ll just have to find out with the rest of you and respond to whatever happens. Until then,