Religious Themes in Film

Lesson 1: Introduction and Lord of the Rings I

The Penultimate Western Hero – Jesus Christ

Like Gandalf, the Gospels tell a story which can read like an entire Hero’s Journey.

Separation

Jesus’ separation starts with his public ministry when he is about 30. Whatever Jesus did before that time (perhaps he was a carpenter like Joseph), Jesus decides to leave that role and become a wandering preacher.

This separation is more radical than it looks. A Jewish male is supposed to stay at home, get a job, and raise a family. One of the most important things a Jewish male can do for his God is to produce children. Single, non-married men were suspect and definitely outside of the norm. Jesus’ decision to become virtually homeless is a radical separation from his culture.

Initiation

Jesus’ tests of initiation might be seen as his forty days in the desert when he was tested by Satan (Mt 4:1-11, Mk 1:12 ). Just like Gandolf must go through his spiritual and physical test, Jesus needed to fast in the desert (physical) and deny the temptations that Satan offered (spiritual). In both Matthew and Mark, Jesus’ time in the desert comes immediately after his baptism by John and just before Jesus embarks on his public ministry. Thus, it serves as a kind of test that Jesus must go through before he assumes his role as a Messiah figure for the Jews.

Read Campbell's description of the "Crossing of the First Threshold" and compare Christ's time in the desert to the description. (Page 77 - 89)

Some Christian churches celebrate this period through Lent, a period of forty days when a physical sacrifice is made in order to reflect on spiritual development.

Jesus comes back from the desert renewed, with a new sense of mission. He begins his public ministry, full of miracles and preaching The Way.

Return

Jesus’ return might be seen as his return to Jerusalem where he is proclaimed King of the Jews (Mt 21: 1-12, John 12:12-20). His public ministry has been building up to this point. People now look up to him as a Savior:

A very large crown spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting: ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ Mt.21:8,9.

He is entering the final, most important part of his role as King: his own sacrifice.

Some Christian churches celebrate this as Palm Sunday, when participants in the Church celebrate by carrying palms.

The Hero’s Journeys and the Resurrection

The Hero’s Journey is also discernable in the story of Christ’s Passion, death, and resurrection. In fact, this could be seen as the penultimate Hero’s Journey.

Jesus dies (separation) but then actual conquers death (tests of initiation) and returns to show his disciples that the journey is possible for all humankind (the return).

In Christian tradition (though not in the Bible), after Jesus dies on the cross, he journeys to hell and frees figures from the Old Testament such as Adam and Abraham. These figures, though all good men, had been trapped in a sort of Old Testament hell, or Sheol, waiting for Christ to open heaven to human kind.

Again, we are faced with the old theme of traveling to hell or the underworld and having to conquer certain elements – in Jesus’ case, death itself.

As the Cumaean sibyl told Aeneas before he went to hell: “Easy is the descent to Avernus [hades], but to retrace one’s steps and escape to the upper air, that is difficult.” (The Aeneid 6:126-130) Jesus’ miracle was that he returned from hell after three days, having conquered it and death as well. When he returns, Jesus assumes his true identity as Lord: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’” (Mt 28:18)

Campbell tells us that the difference between a Hero in a myth and a hero in a fairy tale or legend is that the Hero brings back knowledge and power that changes all of society. “The hero has died as a modern man,” Campbell writes. “But as eternal man- perfected, unspecific, universal man – he has been reborn. His second solemn task and deed therefore… is to return then to us, transfigured, and teach the lessons he has learned of life renewed.” (20).

This is of course true for Jesus who, according to believers, initiated a new era of possibility for humankind: A possibility of life after death.

Read "The Belly of the Whale" in Campbell, and consider the parallels in Christ's death and resurrection. (91 - 94)

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