On The Matrix

This blog's been distilling since a few weeks ago, when i talked to a kid at my school.

I said, "hey, whats up?"
and he said, "Wit, i haven't talked to you in a while... i hear you've become religious... that's cool."

That hit me hard.
In a bad way.
It was a wake-up call.
I've gone to a pentecostal church for my entire life.
How come people at my school don't know i'm a christian?
So i was going to write a blog about that.
until a few days ago.

I turned on AMC.
It was the Matrix.
I love the matrix; it's one of my favorite movies of all time.
So naturally i watched it all... and something struck me as incredible.

The Wachowski brothers, the guys that wrote the film, made one of the most influential "cyber-punk" dystopia films of all time.
But they certainly weren't trying to make an excellent inspirational film for christians.

For those of you who don't know the Matrix too well, haven't seen it, or were utterly confused by it, here's a rundown:
A computer programmer nicknamed Neo is active in the hacker underground.
His entire life, he's had this weird sensation: he knew that there was something wrong.
There was something more to the world than what he knew.
In the hacker subculture, there's word running around of a so-called "matrix".
It's only a buzzword, and in fact, no one actually knows what it is, except for the elusive Morpheus, who is one of the greatest hacker guys of all time.
Neo finds a way to meet this guy.
And what happens is mind blowing.
Neo wakes up bald and naked on a ship hovering in an underground sewer system.
The year is 2200.

Morpheus explains to Neo that, along with the rest of the population, he had been living inside a computer simulation; in reality, they were inside a farm.
A human farm, that used people for energy to power the Machine society.
The Matrix was a false reality that was designed to hide what was actually going on.
There was something much, much bigger than what Neo knew; there was the whole world.
Morpheus took the wool out from over his eyes.

Now, coincidentally, Neo is the only person that can save the world.
Him and the rest of the rebellion members can insert themselves back into the matrix, so that they can interact with it and try to get more people to join their cause.

except Neo is different.
When Neo is inside the Matrix, he isn't bound to its rules.
He can bend them, and even break them.
He can fly, dodge bullets, stop time, and walk through walls.
But before he figured out how he could do all that, he had to realize that the Matrix wasn't real; none of it existed. By focusing on that fact, he could do anything.

The only thing that could stop him was Agent Smith.
Agent Smith is a program on the matrix that is omnipotent.
He can do anything he wants.
He has infinite power, and can make a whole army of himself on a whim.
He has a weakness, though.
Where Neo can break the rules of the system, Agent Smith must follow them.
And while Agent Smith is bound to the Matrix, Neo can leave and go back to reality, with Morpheus and the rest of the rebel movement.

Now i'll bet you that out of all the people that have seen that movie, 85% of them have said, "I wish i was Neo."
After all, Neo is like the ultimate hero.

But the best part?
WE ARE NEO.
don't you get it?
The Matrix is real.
We're in it.
This world?
Sure, if i cut off my arm, i don't have an arm anymore.
But there's so much more to life than this measly, smelly planet.
There's a whole planet full of people sitting in tanks, being mulched for energy to feed the Devil.
That's Agent Smith.
He has full reign over the earth.
Except he's also bound to it.
And guess what?
We aren't.
Not only that, but we can break the rules of the earth.
In Matthew 21:21-22, After Jesus totally owned a fig tree, he said, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." [NIV]

Paul Meaney said it a different way: "With a word we can drown a mountain"

See??
We're Neo.
With Faith, we aren't confined to the boundaries set on the Earth, because God can do anything.

I think that theres no reason Christianity shouldn't appeal to people who play games like D&D, or spend their lives with their noses in sci-fi books.
You don't need to pretend to be part of a rebel cause that's trying to uproot a force that's destroying humanity.
We already are.
We're a band of rebels, huddled in a ship with fingers trembling over an EMP-blast trigger, because the Machines are attacking us.
We're Neo, going head-on with the Agents, and with a little bit of belief, we can take down anything.
We're Morpheus and Trinity, recruiting new members to the cause, showing people that the wool has been over their eyes their entire life.
And one day, Jesus is coming back.
The enemy will be defeated.
Everyone will realize that they had no idea what reality really is.
Go watch the Matrix.