Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
Years ago, my mother-in-law remarked to my grandmother that I “expect everyone to be perfect.”
I disliked her comment at the time, but later realized she was right. I do have a tendency to focus more on my own and others’ past mistakes than on my own and others’ present and future successes. Because I now recognize this in myself, I consistently seek to extend more grace and see beyond surface sins to the heart in myself and other people.
I want to love myself and others through the lens of Christ’s perfect love and redemption. I want to live out my faith knowing that none of us is ever beyond his forgiveness, no matter our past sins and shortcomings. As God told the prophet Samuel, “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7 ESV).
My husband and I have a semi-annual tradition of seeing every new Star Wars movie in the theater as a special date night. We love to watch the ongoing, action-packed saga of good versus evil unfold on the big screen with each episode’s release. The latest installment, which wrapped up the Skywalker story, was no exception, and we saw it together on New Year’s Eve.
Spoiler alert: I expected to be entertained and inspired by the newest Star Wars film. I did not expect, however, to be moved to tears by the intense relationship that develops between the two opposing main characters.
As she searches for her true identity and family roots, Jedi-in-training Rey feels an increasingly Force-filled connection to Sith-lord-in-training Kylo Ren, the fallen child of Resistance heroes Han Solo and Leia Skywalker who was known as Ben Solo before joining the Empire.
The rising leaders repeatedly try to convince one another to defect and join each other’s causes. At first, Rey is terrified to be in the presence of her enemy, but when the two finally face off on the wreckage of the Death Star, she slays Kylo Ren with Annakin Skywalker’s lightsaber, then uses the Force to heal him, thus saving his life, before she flees.
When Rey and Ren are reunited near the end of the film in the presence of her grandfather the emperor, the “dyad in the Force” joins forces (pun intended) to defeat the powerful Sith. The emperor nearly kills them both, but a very injured Ben Solo reappears from a bottomless pit (note the symbolism here) to embrace a dying Rey and give his life to save hers.
The emotions I felt while watching Ben Solo’s redemption and sacrifice stuck with me for days.
As she prepares to face her grandfather, Rey is told by the spirit of Jedi master Luke Skywalker, “Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi … your destiny.” I believe the Force is to the Jedi what perfect love is to us as Christ-followers. Love is the only thing that saves us from falling into a bottomless pit of our own fear and darkness.
In one of my favorite Bible verses, the apostle John writes, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18 ESV).
Rey’s perfect love for Ben Solo casts out her fear, and in so doing, it casts out his darkness. She sees beneath the surface of Kylo Ren, betrayer of his family and murderer of his father, to the inner goodness of former Jedi-in-training Ben Solo.
In the final piece of this epic redemption story, Ben gives his life so that Rey may live.
As I reflected on the immediate grief I experienced following the death of Ben in this space opera, I was reminded of Christ’s sacrificial love for us as sinners tempted by darkness.
Like Kylo Ren, we as humans often seek glory for ourselves instead of God. We fall into the temptation of Satan’s self-serving power, as they fell for the temptation of the Empire’s evil power. We must be continually redeemed through the perfect love of our Savior, as Kylo Ren is redeemed through the eternal goodness of the Force.
Christ gave his life to save ours because he loves us. Like Rey, he sees beyond our sinful, hardened exteriors to his father’s divine image-bearing goodness within our hearts. He sees our potential, not our pasts, because on earth, as in Star Wars, perfect love casts out fear.
is a wife, mom to two girls, watercolor artist, seventh-generation Texan, and early-onset Alzheimer’s daughter. She is the author and co-illustrator of two award-winning children’s books for grieving preschoolers, Where Did My Sweet Grandma Go? and Where Did My Sweet Grandpa Go?, and the editor of Love of Dixie magazine. She loves green tea, dark chocolate, and collecting all things turquoise.
Photograph © Jeet Mahetalia, used with permission
I never knew of your semi-annual Star Wars tradition. Great symbolic reminders of what Christ did, and does, for each of us that believe in Him, as our personal savior from satan and from ourselves.