Now for me, Star Wars has always been space fantasy and not strictly sci fi. Star Trek is sci fi. Star Wars is wizards in space. If you think about the differences in the films, hopefully the distinction will be clear.
What this also means is that as much as I enjoyed Rogue One, it did not fill me with the same sense of awe as watching Star Wars when I was a kid. It is too gritty, too real. It inhabits the same universe, but it is a war movie in space, not wizards in space (except for the parts that were, which were my favorites scenes). The parts related to faith and the mystical, while present, were secondary to the story-telling even as much as they were primary for many of the characters.
Of course, one of the key recurring themes is the message of Hope - Hope in the face of uncertainty, Hope in the face of loss, Hope in the face of brutal power. This seems so appropriate as we sit here in the midst of Advent.
"I like to think he's dead. It makes things easier."
Our initial encounter with a grown up Jyn Erso is with a young woman who has given up. While she is in no hurry to die, she also sees little hope for the universe around her. After being rescued by a team of rebels, she is questioned about the whereabouts of her father.
Her father had been kidnapped by Imperial troops when she was a young girl and she has not seen him in 15 years. Her thought that him being dead makes things easier is her personal defense mechanism against considering where he has been and what he has been doing. She obviously knew some of what was going on even if she did not know the details. As a young girl, her parents had already developed an escape plan with her, a way to get to safety should they be found. She watched the Imperial troops kill her mother and take her father away before she escaped into hiding in a hole alone for who knows how long before a friend of her mother came to get her. Then she spent the next 10 years or so in a militant band of rebels fighting the Imperial government.
That is before they, too, left her alone.
In some ways, I imagine this is how the Israelites were feeling under Roman occupation. The Imperial government ruling their lands were often brutal in their treatment of the Jewish people that lived in the occupied lands. They collected heavy taxes from them, curtailed their freedoms, offered severe penalties for legal infractions...and that's just what we know from Biblical texts. It is likely the reality was much worse.
Their ancestors had walked with God, talked with God, seen the glory of God go before them. And here they sit under a brutal regime that does not care for their well-being only the protection of their own property and power.
How long had they sought a savior? How much conflict must there have been? Surely there were cells of militants and others that were trying to throw off the yoke of Imperial brutality.
They sat in darkness, desperately needing hope.
"There is more than one sort of prison, Captain. I sense that you carry yours wherever you go."
As I watched the movie this time, I found myself getting emotional in the scenes that most directly touched on hope - Jyn Erso risking her life to save a young girl caught in the middle of a skirmish between militants and Imperial troops; the moment that Jyn Erso discovers that not only is her father still alive, but that he sacrificed his freedom for a chance to save others; Jyn's speech to the Rebel Alliance; the volunteers agreeing to go on what is likely a one-way mission just because they believed there was a chance; all the sacrifices in the hope that others will benefit.
How do we find hope in the face of a brutal regime that cares nothing for the lives of people? What does it mean for that hope to extend to the well-being of others outside of yourself?
Much as the Rebel leaders were afraid to heed Jyn's call, the Jewish leaders were unable to accept Jesus' teachings. Who is this young upstart that thinks he has something to teach us? Why should we listen to him? And beyond the Biblical witness, there was probably more than a little bit of "why are you rocking the boat" going on. Yes, Jesus was teaching something that challenged their understanding of God, but Jesus was also teaching something that would get them all in trouble. They were trapped in prisons that they carried with them, prisons that told them to just play things safe and at least they might still be breathing for another day.
But those on the margins, those who were outcasts, those who had nothing left to lose - Jesus came to show them love as well. He came to show both those with something to lose and those with none at all a better way to exist in the world. He came to release not only the captives in physical prisons, but those in other types of prisons as well. He helped them all have hope in a better future.
"Do you think anyone's listening?"As the movie nears the end, the team realizes that the only hope for the Rebels and the rest of the galaxy is to beam the plans off the planet to the fleet in orbit above the planet. However, they are not in communication with the fleet. They have no way of knowing if the planet-wide shield (which would block transmissions from the surface) is still in place, if the fleet has been destroyed, or if anyone in the fleet is even listening. As Jyn throws the switch to send the transmission, Cassian asks, "Do you think anyone's listening?"
"I do. Someone's out there."
Now I will admit, as someone that was already feeling emotional with all these small acts of hope throughout the movie, I pretty much lost it at that point. As we look at the state of our world, as we pray without ceasing for the well-being of our planet and those around us, how do we know anyone is listening? Like Cassian, it is easy to border on despair in the face of brutality and hate.
But if we look around us, we see the signs of hope. We see people standing up in the face of state-sanctioned violence demanding changes to the policies that create brutality, pain, and death. We see people demanding changes to racist policies that privilege white people over persons of color. We see people putting themselves in harms way to protect the environment even when they would have been unaffected if they had turned a blind eye. We see people protesting policies that will take from those that already have little and give it to those with excess.
And of course as Christians, we may recognize these acts as the work of the Spirit still at work in the world. As the Spirit blows across the land, she inspires people to act not for their own selfish interests, but for all people. Like Mary, we can find hope and joy in God's work in the world.
I think this is what makes the Magnificat one of my favorite songs. Mary has been visited by an angel and told that she will bear God's son for the world. She is obviously surprised by the whole thing and goes to share this message with her relative, Elizabeth. I imagine it didn't quite feel real to Mary until Elizabeth greeted her with such excitement. After Elizabeth's greeting, Mary reacts in song expressing all that she knew her baby would mean to the world. She who was as good as nobody in her culture was chosen to bear God for the sake of the world.
And so, like Mary, we cry out with a joyful shout because we know that someone is listening.
And because it is currently my favorite version of the Magnificat: