Gran Torino, Walt Kowalski, Samson, and Seeing Jesus in All Things

Spoiler Alert!  You may want to watch Gran Torino before you read this post.

 

           

When I saw that Clint Eastwood had put out a new movie, I quickly began trying to convince Shelly that this would be a great movie to go to on a date!  Normally, when I try to do this it winds up blowing up in my face.  However, Gran Torino actually worked out great for a date movie!  It turns out that this was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.  Of course, I would have said that no matter what, simply because it has Clint Eastwood in it.  He could have been playing a harmonic with his armpits for an hour and a half and I would have petitioned for it to get an Oscar.  Nevertheless, Gran Torino might go down as one of his best movies ever.  

            In the movie, Clint Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a bitter, disgruntled, bigoted, Korean War Veteran who has been recently widowed and thus has become alienated from the rest of his family who may have only put up with him in the first place for the sake of his sainted wife.  After catching his teenage Vietnamese next door neighbor, Thao, trying to steal his car, Kowalski forms a friendship with the boy and his family which turns out to be redemptive not only for the wayward youth, but for Kowalski himself.

            At the end of the movie, Walt Kowalski lays down his life willingly in order to save the young Hmong boy from a life of gangs and violence.  The parallels with Christ are so stunning that I had a hard time choking back the tears.  (I had to choke back the tears, because my wife always makes fun of me for crying during movies.  She didn’t cry when Ole’ Yeller died!)  In the end, however, Kowalski’s character has little in common with Jesus Christ besides his death. 

            I bring this up, because characters of this type are scattered throughout the Bible.  For example, have you ever thought of Samson as a Christ type?  Samson is a blood thirsty goon who never turns away from a fight and cannot resist the temptations of women, even when they will obviously lead to his downfall.  And yet, Sampson is a type of Christ.  One of the last lines in Judges about Samson says this, “Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’  Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it.  Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived” (Judges 16:30).  This valiant death paved the way for the Israelites to defeat the Philistines and thus gain there freedom.  In other words, Samson willingly gave his life to deliver Israel. 

            Looking at the rest of Samson’s life, you may think he makes a sorry type of Christ, however, Samson has as much to tell us about Jesus in his differences as he does in his similarities.  Samson is in the Philistine palace because he could not resist temptation.  Jesus dies on the cross after resisting every temptation.  Samson makes himself ritually impure in every way imaginable (from marrying a Philistine to touching dead carcasses), Jesus is pure in every way.  Samson death destroys his enemies.  Jesus’ death makes His enemies friends.  In other words, if you really want to understand Samson, you have to let him point you towards Christ in his similarities and his differences.  When Samson dies to free Israel, we remember the precious death of Jesus to free us from sin.  When Samson sins to fulfill his lust, we praise Jesus Christ who denied Himself every sinful pleasure that He might be made a faithful High Priest for us (Hebrews 2:17)! 

            To describe this concept, theologians speak of knowledge of God as being apophatic and kataphatic.  Simply put, kataphatic knowledge is knowing God by what He is, apophatic is knowing God by what He is not.  For example, when the Bible calls God Father, it means He embodies all of the positive traits we normally associate with fatherhood.  He is the perfect father, that’s kataphatic knowledge.  When’s somebody’s father is abusive or unfaithful or absent or inadequate, however, we know that God is not like them in any of these ways.  That’s apophatic knowledge. 

            This is true in the Bible as well as in popular culture as well.  Because art cannot escape the timeless truths of God, it is always interacting with truth.  That’s why Christians cannot go to the movies, read books, or turn on the TV in order to shut off our minds!  Rather, we should be diligently at work in our entertainments as well as in our studies, so that we can interact with the world in such a way that we can always draw attention back to Jesus, whom we serve.  When we begin to do this we learn how to be reminded of our Lord in everything we do, and remembering Him, we enter into a life of praise and thanksgiving!   

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