The Matrix has you!

So, last night at youth group we talked about The Matrix. Yeah, I know that movie is so 7 years ago (nearly), but who hasn't wondered about that movie? And, when they found out that that's what we are doing, they were rather enthused! I think that most of them had a good time.
To help me understand some of the spiritual things to The Matrix, I read "The Gospel Reloaded" by Chris Seay and Greg Garrett (©2003). It was a pretty good book. The authers let the readers know off the bat that there are a lot of different religious ideologies that can be found throughout the movie, which is obviously true, but something that we Christians can do is utilize the Christian influences that the movie has/represents. (Which in all reality, utilizing something of one's culture to share the Gospel or to dig deeper in ones faith, is not something new for the Church to be doing, in fact Paul did that at the Areopagus: Acts 17:16-34.)
I thought that I'd share some of my thoughts from the book (my thoughts mixed in with what the authors wrote) and somethings that we talked about as well. It was a really good time!

Something that the movie The Matrix does for us is that it defines faith. The faith found in Morpheus, Trinity, and eventually Neo. We also see a lack of faith found in the likes of Cypher. Genuine faith is about living in an alternate reality—rejecting the embrace of the physical realm in exchange for a higher plane. The trick, of course is that the physical world desires our complete attention and it seduces us with things that we can own: cars, technology, money, emblems of status, and so on. Even in our faith, we try to use the things of the physical realm to help define our faith: using scientists and archeologists to help prove some of the mysteries of faith. (Noah’s Ark, the parting of the Red Sea, the Shroud of Turin)
We can find evidences of the supernatural on this mortal plane, but it’s not found in a laboratory or in some ridiculous mathematics equation. No, it’s in the beauty of things that we smell the scent of the Creator that has made life. And in the powerful things of nature we can see the divine at work. God is manifest through the laugh of a child. We can actually feel his power in our awe of nature.
The matrix is an illusion, providing blinders for our eyes that hide the true reality. We do not want to see what is real; we rush past it. Atheists deny their faith in the spiritual realm and settle for the wonder of the world they inhabit, while many Christians make the opposite mistake. They hide from the culture and create a fantasy world around themselves. God has given us this planet, this place of dwelling, for our pleasure. Sure, we are going to have to work for things in this life, but we are supposed to enjoy life. And it’s the enjoyment in life, living for God that we can get past our own matrices- one being the captivity of sin, and really see the world that God created and further than that, seeing that God (in Jesus) came to fix our "matrix."
I believe that we are presented with choices daily. We can choose to come to youth group, we can choose to have jobs, and we can choose to love people. I don’t believe that we can ever move away from the realm of choice. It’s not simply cause and effect, because that is too narrow of a sense of what it means to be human. That is why I love the analogy of the pills. You take one and you stay in your current state of reality. You take the other and a whole, new world waits to be explored. But it is up to you to choose, it’s also your responsibility to choose as well. This goes right into Christianity. You hear about the Good News that Jesus brings to us in His Word. You have a choice. You choose to accept it or not to. And guess what? You will be held responsible by God for that choice and how you choose to live your life. (And of course, the question is then, if I "choose" God, is that me or the Holy Spirit working in me? ...the obvious answer is the later of the two.)
Something interesting to think about is Neo’s worldly name: Thomas A. Anderson. Anderson literally means “Son of Man.” In the Gospels, there was a man named Thomas, who doubted in JC’s resurrection, until he was able to actually see it for himself. As with the whole series of The Matrix, it could be said of Neo, corresponding to his name, that “my character as a doubter is part of my becoming, and I am one of many possible messiahs.” (And corresponding to the actual series of movies, he is the one and he just needs to believe that.)

One question that we posed is: What do you see as a “real Matrix”? Why? And then… Who is Neo? Who is Morpheus? Who are the Agents? Who would Agent Smith be? Who is the Oracle? Who is Trinity? Who is Cypher?
When we take that question and really apply it to real life, our "matrix" is the fallen world that we are in! Think about it, before we ever come to faith (regardless of age) we are stuck to and bound to the reality that we are born into sin! So, in a loose connection to the movie. Our "Neo" is Jesus- "The One" to come and save us from the bondage of sin (the bondage of the machines). Our "Morpheus" is John the Baptist, the one who laid the path before Jesus came onto the scene. Our "Agents" are demons, trying to eradicate us, the faithful. Our "Agent Smith" is the Anti-Christ. Our "Oracle" is any of the OT prophets. Our "Trinity" is the Holy Spirit- the connection here lies at the end of the first movie when she gives life to Neo (after he'd been shot), as, in a sense, the Holy Spirit did with Jesus when He was in the grave. Our "Cypher" is atheists, non-Christans, doubters, and a Judas Iscariot figure.

There really is a lot that can be taken out of this movie series!