Perspective

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corninthians 12:9-10)

The first time Ender Wiggin experiences a war game in the Battle Room, he quickly picks up on something that no one else does - perspective is the key to success. He watches everyone else remain oriented to the entry hallway in the zero-gravity environment, then he does something radically different. “The enemy’s gate is down,” becomes Ender’s mantra. Without gravity to define direction, Ender is free to define direction for himself, and by doing this he finds he has an advantage over everyone else.

This was not a change that just occurred suddenly the first time he entered the Battle Room, either. When the spaceship from Earth arrives at the orbiting Battle School, Colonel Graff notices that, unlike the rest of the new recruits who continue to think of “up” and “down” relative to the ship’s position (and their position in it) when it left Earth, Ender has already oriented himself relative to the ladder out of the ship and into the artificial gravity of the space station.

In his letters to various churches, Paul never gives details about the “thorn in the flesh” that he had, but it certainly seems to have impacted his daily life. It wasn't something he wanted to have - “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me,” he tells the Corinthians. He didn't let its continuing presence ruin his ministry, however. Seeing that God wouldn't take it away, he chose instead to change his perspective. God used Paul’s weakness to show His great power, and Paul recognized this and came to accept it.

Changing our perspective isn't something that happens automatically. It is something we have to choose to do. If we make the choice, however, to let God work through us in even the most negative of circumstances, there is no limit to our strength in his power.

Waiting for the Harvest

Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. (Isaiah 55: 7-8)

Much of the third season of Falling Skies revolves around the strange things that are happening to Tom and Anne’s daughter Lexi as a result of her hybrid alien/human DNA, the most notable of which is the fact that although she is only eighteen months old, she looks like a young adult. In the episode “Door Number Three,” we find Lexi in a cocoon, metamorphosing into who knows what, while the rest of the community debates what to do about her. Many think that she should be destroyed lest she emerge with tremendous power and the ability to destroy or enslave the humans once and for all. Tom tries to be, if not the voice of reason, then the voice of compassion and love. For the sake of his child, he has to convince everyone else not to do anything rash and out of fear. He wants them to wait and see what comes out of the cocoon - there is a chance she might come out completely on the side of the aliens, but they have no way of knowing this for certain.

In Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about a farmer who plants some wheat, but his enemy comes along and sows weeds in the same field among the farmer’s good crop. When both wheat and weeds start sprouting, the farm hands want to pull up the weeds. After all, it would be irresponsible to let the weeds grow along side the wheat, taking the nutrients from the soil that should be going only to the good plants. They want to make a preemptive strike, get out the Roundup, get rid of the potential threat before it has a chance to do something bad.

God, like the farmer in the parable and Tom Mason, says, Stop! Wait! Don’t do something stupid that you can’t reverse! You need to wait for the plants to grow up so you can be sure of the difference between them or you will pull up the good plants along with the weeds. You need to wait for Lexi to come out of the cocoon and find out for sure what has happened to her so you don’t kill her for no good reason.

May we always love people and have compassion for them, never writing them off as irredeemable, never trying to do God’s work for him - only God can tell for certain what a person will become and only he can make the determination of Wheat or Weed.

Recognition

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). (John 20:15-16)

Sarah Jane Smith is investigating the strange, sudden rise in test scores at a local school following a mysterious UFO sighting. So is a handsome stranger in an ill-fitting suit. One night they are both prowling the halls of the school looking for answers when Sarah Jane makes a discovery in a storage area: a familiar blue police box. Backing away from it, she walks past her fellow investigator and realizes just who he is. She has never seen this face before, but yet...she does recognize him. And he, of course, recognizes her. “Hello, Sarah Jane,” he says, and instantly she knows it’s the Doctor.

Mary had come with the other women on the first day of the week to complete the burial rituals that there had not been time to see to when Jesus died just before the onset of the Sabbath. When they arrive, however, the tomb is empty. Frantic and upset, she pleads with the gardener to tell her where the body has been taken, but it turns out he is not the gardener. “Mary,” he says, and once he says her name she looks up and immediately recognizes her teacher and friend.

Sarah Jane wasn't expecting to see the Doctor when she began investigating the school. “I waited for you and you didn't come back and I thought you must have died!” she tells him. Mary was expecting to see Jesus when she went to his tomb, but not in a state where he could stand there talking to her. We have the benefit of history and hindsight, so we are ready to see the Risen Savior on Easter morning, but there are other times that we are surprised to see God in our lives because we weren't expect to see him there.

Jesus was right where he said he would be three days after his crucifixion, so why were his followers so surprised to see an empty tomb? Not long after that, he said he would always be with us, so why does he have to call our names before we actually look around sometimes? My Easter prayer is that we might expect to see God in every situation, right where he said he would be.

Do You Think That I Care For You So Little?

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)

The Clara Oswald we see in the recent Doctor Who episode called “Dark Water” is in a very dark place. Traumatic events in her life have caused her to lash out at the Doctor, seeking his help in the most destructive of ways. She tosses spare TARDIS keys one by one into the lava from the volcano she has convinced him to visit, thinking that the Doctor will never agree to her plan unless she threatens both of their lives.

She soon finds out, however, that she was wrong. There’s nothing the Doctor wants to do more than help her find her boyfriend. Clara still finds it hard to believe, after everything she did, that he would want to do anything other than take her home for good. “You're going to help me?” she asks, incredulously.
“Well, why wouldn't I help you?” replies the Doctor.
“Because of what I just did, I...”
“You betrayed me. You betrayed my trust, you betrayed our friendship, you betrayed everything that I've ever stood for. You let me down!”
“Then why are you helping me?” Clara finally asks.
“Why? Do you think that I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?”

Peter, seemingly one of the strongest disciples, denied knowing Jesus, yet Jesus never stopped loving him or putting his trust in him as a leader of the fledgling Church, even going so far as to entrust him with the keys to heaven. Although none of the Gospel writers tell us about the first meeting between Peter and Jesus after the resurrection, I imagine the conversation went something like the one between Clara and the Doctor:
“Why are you even speaking to me after what I did?” Peter might have said.
“Do you think that I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?”

It’s the same conversation I imagine each of us could probably have with Jesus, many times over, and praise the Lord that we would get the same response.

If It Saves The Earth

Just as people are destined to die once, and and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:27-28)

The plot of the Doctor Who episode “The Stolen Earth” is basically what is says on the tin: the Earth has been stolen, right out from under the TARDIS, by the Daleks. While the Doctor and Donna try to figure out where it has gone, the humans stolen along with their planet must deal with their new pepper-pot overlords and figure out how to get back to their rightful location in space and time.

Former Prime Minister Harriet Jones becomes the one who marshals the Doctor’s forces in his absence. She uses a piece of alien technology called the sub-wave network, which allows her to contact everyone who might be able to get in touch with his tenth incarnation: Captain Jack Harkness in the Torchwood hub, Sarah Jane Smith, Martha Jones, and Donna’s grandfather, Wilf, who just happens to have Rose Tyler with him. All efforts to reach the Doctor have thus far been unsuccessful, but together they concoct a plan to boost the signal and get all the phones in the world to call the Doctor’s number at the same time.

There’s a problem, however. All that signal-boosting and transmitting will make the sub-wave network visible to the Daleks, who will promptly find and exterminate them. Yes, Harriet acknowledges, they would see it, but they would trace the signal back to her, thus protecting the others. “But my life doesn’t matter,” she tells them, “not if it saves the earth.”

In the end, the Daleks do find and kill her, but the heroes’ plan is successful. The Doctor finds them, the Daleks are defeated, all of the stolen planets are returned to their rightful places, yada, yada, yada. Harriet Jones’s death helps to save the earth and the day.

At least Harriet Jones was killed by an actual, fearsome enemy, and not by the very humans her sacrifice was meant to save.

He Chose to Die

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)

John Smith, the slightly odd new teacher at the Farringham School for Boys, is not who he appears to be. He is actually the Doctor, but not just in any old disguise - in order to hide from some aliens chasing him and Martha Jones across space and time, he uses the chameleon arch to change himself into a human, single heart and all, with nothing left of the Time Lord but a fancy pocket watch and strange dreams about adventures in a magic blue box.

Despite these precautions, the aliens do find their way to England in 1913. When they threaten the school, Martha makes the crucial decision to tell Smith of his true identity and encourage him to revert back to his true self in order to save the day. There is only one complication: John Smith has fallen in love with the school’s nurse, Joan Redfern. He doesn’t remember anything about this Doctor character, but he’s pretty sure that his other self won’t have the same feelings.

As it turns out, the feeling is mutual. Joan doesn’t want this other man that John Smith has become, even though the Doctor assures her that John Smith’s essence is a part of him. She rejects his offer to become a companion because he is the one who brought death and destruction to Farringham - the school wouldn’t have needed saving at all if the Doctor had not tried to hide from the aliens in the first place. Instead of facing the threat and dealing with it, he hid from it, and Joan calls him on it: “He was braver than you, in the end, that ordinary man. You chose to change, but he chose to die.”

Jesus was braver than all of us. We choose to change our minds and hearts back and forth all the time to and from the right path. We choose to hide from the things we should do, and to do the things that bring death and destruction even when we have the best of intentions. He chose to die to make up for it.

My Lord Gave His Life

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

The Doctor and Martha Jones spend most of the episode “Gridlock” in cars that are stuck on the motorway of New New York, where the traffic jam is endless and drivers spend decades literally going nowhere. Eventually, the Doctor learns that a virus wiped out the upper city and the  motorway and undercity were sealed off to save the people there from the same fate. He also discovers that the apparent savior of the undercity is none other than The Face of Boe, who has wired himself into the power system in order to keep the undercity’s automated systems going.

Although the people of the undercity were saved from the virus, their existance is not what you would call a good life. The Face of Boe, knowing that his death is at hand, asks the Doctor to help save the people once again by freeing them from the motorway. The only problem is that to unseal them would require much more power than what is available. Finally, in one last monumental effort, the Face of Boe pours out every ounce of energy he has left in order to open the gates and allow the cars into the sunny upper city at last. “My lord gave his life for the city,” remarks Novice Hame, the Face of Boe’s caretaker.

Lent is a time to reflect on sacrifices. Some people give up something for the forty-day period because it helps them remember Jesus’s ultimate sacrifice, which opened the doors that trapped us in our pointless, smog-filled existence away from God and let us out into the light. It also gives us cause to proclaim, “My Lord gave his life for the world.”