Star Wars Episode 9 finds the young lady Rey in a point where she has no peace. She keeps asking “Be with me. Be with me.” trying to use the Force to connect with the Jedi of the past. She has been told in the previous movie that her lineage is that of nothingness. That her family, who left her on a desert planet, was not worth knowing. She has the rest of the Resistance with her and even Leia Organa…THE Leia Organa…but she is having trouble with her connection to the Force and feeling distracted. Even with all she has accomplished of finding Luke Skywalker, helping end Starkiller base and joining the resistance she still does not understand who she is which brings doubt, confusion, and an extreme hunger to carve out her place in the galaxy.
Rey’s questions is one of identity. We all face it. Who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I here? Another part of identity is family. Family shapes and identity like nothing else. Growing up without her family around has been painful and confusing for the young Force-sensitive heroine.
All this confusion pushes Rey to try harder. She trains so much she is not out on the front lines helping the her friends. She refuses to believe that she is worthy to carry Luke’s lightsaber. She even takes the risk going out onto dangerous seas alone with probably no experience piloting a skiff.
Then Emperor Palpatine reveals himself and they find out it is real and he is back, or to be more accurate, he had never really left. Then she finds out a scary truth: her remaining family is not someone she wants anything to do with. She is the granddaughter of the most vile and evil person known to the galaxy. She also comes across a version of herself that terrifies her. The Force shows her an evil, Sith version of herself. She fights herself and runs in fear, even after healing Ben Solo. She wants to be loth-wolf, but she sees herself a rancor.
We must all face our identity. We must all realize that we each have a propensity for darkness. Facing your own failure, or even the thought of major failure, is not fun. It is discouraging, confusing, scary, and even debilitating at times.
Have you faced your own darkness? Have you faced your own sin? Yes, you do have a propensity for evil. We all do. We “fall short of the glory of God” as Romans 3:23 puts it. Do you know a perfect human who has never committed anything wrong? Never cheated on homework or never fibbed?
Then Rey finds some help. Luke Skywalker, now a Force Spirit, comes to speak with her. “What are you doing?” He had finally faced his own failures and now he comes to tell her “I was wrong.” He comes just like Jacob Marley goes to Scrooge. He gives her another opportunity. A second chance.
You see, we all have propensity for evil but we also all have propensity for good. God knows that. He sees you for what you can be, not just for what you are right now. He calls us closer. Why do you think Jesus came? To take a tour? To give you a ticket to paradise? He came for REDEMPTION. He came so you can start doing better here, now, in this life.
If you take the time to read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, you will find He has a lot to fix in all of us. Throughout this passage you find Him taking us deeper and deeper into grit and dirt and love. But you will also find that He is here for you. Just as Rey had all of the Jedi of the past rooting for her when she faced Palpatine, you have Jesus rooting for you now. The writer of Hebrews gives us a list of “a great cloud of witnesses” in Hebrews 11. These people set great examples for us. They might not be talking to us, but we have their example. He then encourages us to stick with Christ the “author and perfecter of our faith” in the next chapter.
Yes, you have a propensity to evil as I do. Yes, you have a propensity to good as we all do. You can be a horrible rancor, a beast of terror, or you can be a noble loth-wolf, assisting the rebellion in taking back Lothal. Which will you be?