3 hours swash-buckling almost non-stop action, featuring not just one, but many handsome hunks should surely qualify as a super-duper movie in my books. Well, it certainly pushed my adrenaline levels up, but after a while, seriously it can get pretty tiring watching ugly orcs being beheaded or Bilbo the Hobbitt putting on the magic ring again when the enemies get too hot to handle or Legolas the handsome elf shoot 1 more arrow. And as for the centre-piece villain who takes the cake - Smaug the dragon which can't die, even when drowned in a river of hot melted gold, entitled the chieftest and greatest of Calamities, the Mighty, the Impenetrable, the Stupendous - after all the awesome slithering, sliding, lumbering, fire-spouting, tail-smashing antics, to me he was just a rather ponderous pompous wordy reptilian. (I am guessing dragons, if science had been able to catch one, would be classified as reptiles).Well, at least the action was fast, furious and innovative. From skirmishes with giganto spiders, escapades in barrels shooting down rapids and popping out of toilet bowls to being buried in fish and riding on suspended rail-cars in a gold mine, it quite takes the breath away. After all that, the movie ended suddenly in a disappointing cliff-hanger, which obviously means everyone will have to wait and see the next part when it comes out. I was put-out, I am the type who like their endings neat and not hanging in the air.
But notwithstanding the grouses, Desolation of Smaug is actually not that bad, if I take a step back and look at the big picture. That was precisely what Bilbo the Hobitt did - he looked up, climbed a tree and saw the reality beyond the enchanted forest which had them running around in circles. That could very well apply to real life too. We can get so caught up wandering around in the forest of our lives we forget to look up and so miss the grand destiny God has prepared for us. And certainly nothing can be grander than a quest to reclaim what has been lost to an enemy.
That was the entire premise of the movie, featuring a little band embarking on a perilous journey to get back the precious Arkenstone which would restore the throne of the kingdom to the rightful king of the dwarfs. The stone had been stolen and was now guarded by Smaug the nasty fire-breathing dragon who calls himself Death. What an apt parallel with the journey of Jesus who came from heaven to snatch back the souls of earthly man from hell's jaws of eternal fire. Only He didn't depend on fancy swords, bow and arrows, clever wit, great ideas, legions of angels or magic staffs. He simply got hung on a cross and by that one defining act of death, broke its chains over all mankind forever. As Apostle Paul explains (Acts 13:23, 29-30), "...according to the promise, God raised up...a Savior—Jesus... Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead". It took 700 years for the prophecy of the ancient prophet - that there would be born unto mankind a Savior (Isaiah 9:6) - to come to pass.
Interestingly the entire journey to the Lonely Mountain, the lair of Smaug, was based on prophecy too. The desolation had already been predicted, the way to enter the mountain also had been foretold. So in accordance to the prophecy, having made it on time and with key in hand, everyone waited for the last light of Durin's day (which happens but once a year) to reveal the concealed keyhole which would open the secret door into the mountain. The sun came, went and disappeared but no keyhole was revealed. What went wrong? The prophecy must have been a lie, a fable made up by ancient seers who had nothing else better to do than put false hope into the gullible. So everyone turned away and went back down the mountain in great disappointment that it was all a wasted effort. Everyone except Bilbo the Hobitt. And because he still hung onto the prophecy, though everyone else thought it was dumb to do so, because he choose to still believe in spite of everything that appeared contrariwise, he saw its fulfillment - the hidden keyhole was revealed in the last ray of moon -not sun- light. That moon was the real 'last light' of the day. Unlike the others who walked away, Bilbo trusted in the given word, though he was totally clueless and didn't understand why it wasn't happening the way everyone expected.
How typical the human tendency to assume we are so smart and so right all the time. We cannot conceive or concede that God can do things a different way; it has to be our way or no way that God must prove Himself. So throughout the centuries man expects the Creator of the universe to show up under the microscope of his science-god, to be taken apart, prodded and examined to 'prove' He is 'real'. And when He doesn't, we declare 'There, God doesn't exist'. We forget that from the very beginning God had promised that the One who will crush Death's head shall come out of of woman's offspring (Genesis 3:15). We are quick to dismiss the declaration of the angel who appeared to Joseph, fiance of Mary in a dream that "... what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because He will save his people from their sins.” Matthew added a timely reminder "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet" (Matthew 1:20-22)
Just like the dwarfs who were unable to appreciate things from a totally different perspective, we make the wrong assumptions about God, conforming the Divine to our 'box' and when He can't be thus confined, we conveniently toss Him out as unnecessary, since life goes on with or without Him anyway. But whether or not we acknowledge it, the prophecies of God stand unalterable. God knows we need a Savior - to reclaim and restore unto us what we had lost through our own default when man decided to call the shots and disobey Him. That was a long time ago in Eden. Today many don't even know they are lost; many don't think they need God, much less any savior.
The dwarf king threw away the key as useless even as he turned around and headed back the old way. Only that key could unlock only that door. God has designed a special key for us; He sent Jesus who alone can unlock the door into the best destiny God had originated for man from the very beginning. Instead because of our limited assumptions and presumptions we conclude Jesus is useless; we throw Him away and step back into the darkness and death that awaits us all. Bilbo knew what was at stake and he alone had the courage to wait. It does take courage to believe when there is seemingly nothing to support that belief. If only we knew what we stand to gain and what we stand to lose, perhaps we would not turn away so easily and so fast from God. Perhaps we would dare take God at His Word and believe He cannot and does not lie.
"....understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God..." 2 Peter 1:20-21
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