When my friends in youth group all turned 17, we went on a bit of a horror flick bonanza. Every week we would rent one or two of the “classics” and enjoy the scares (but probably more laughs). The first series was Friday the 13th.
For those of you who are too old or young to remember, Friday the 13th centered around a serial killer seeking revenge for the death of a boy at camp crystal lake because the teenage lifeguards were too busy off having sex. From what I could gather, the quickest way to die in these movies was to go off and have sex in the woods, scary abandoned cabin, scary abandoned house, etc. But I digress.
One of the first scenes in the first movie followed one of the female, teenage counselors hitchhiking to camp (brilliant start). She is picked up by the driver of a dark jeep, who the viewer quickly discerns is the killer. Within a moment, they speed past the camp entrance. Immediately realizing the danger she is in, she throws herself from the jeep and takes off running into the woods.
To spare you the details, she got caught.
However, any rational movie goer asks the same question: why didn’t she run the 100 ft to the camp entrance instead of directionless into the middle of the woods. Sure, there is no certainty that she would have made it there safely, but still, it was the only direction that any hope of safety existed.
I’ve been going through Romans over the past through months with a couple of guys every Monday, chapter by chapter. For those of you who have read through Romans know that there is a portion that makes you feel awful about the human condition. Paul does an excellent job of illustrating the depravity of man in this section, right around Romans 7, or more specifically Romans 7:24.
Paul declares, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Uplifting and optimistic right? This prompted our group to muse on our own wretchedness and how difficult it was to fight the sin in our own lives. Time and time again we try to stop the things we know to be wrong, time and time again we fail.
Maybe we are looking at sin the wrong way. We examined the sin in our lives and the response was to flee from it– into the woods, with nowhere to go except further into the woods away from what is chasing us.
Do you see the problem in this? The intention is good, but the inevitability is that we will be caught. Just like the girl running from her eventual killer, we are constantly looking over our shoulder. The focus is still on the sin.
The question in our head is this:
How far from sin can I get?
Not a bad question, admittedly, as I said the intention is good, but the results are disastorous. Here is the question we should be asking ourselves:
How close to righteousness can I get?
Just as I screamed at the TV, “stupid girl, run to the camp!” we should be screaming at ourselves to run to Christ. He is as far from sin as can be and is the only safe place we have. If we run from sin, we will always be running, at least until we are caught. If we run towards Christ, and pursue righteousness, escaping that sins that plague us is a by product of that pursuit. It is a Christ focused mentality.
Paul says it better than me, later in Romans:
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (rom. 12:21)
Don’t try to outrun evil, rather run to Christ and let his goodness overcome evil for you.
Paul didn’t sit in his wretchedness and despair as we had that Monday night in front royal, rather gave his reader hope.
“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
as a note, I wasn’t the one to come up with the Friday the 13th running from sin analogy. That was either my campus minister in college or Louie Giglio, it is sad I don’t remember. However, my thoughts and reactions are all legitimate, as I am prone to yell at stupid movie characters doing stupid things.
May 2nd, 2011 at 3:00 am
As a fairly new christian desperate to find the right road, I have been struggling with out-running evil. I sympathize with the girl just not making it. Sin is all around us. Of course, naturally we want to run towards Christ, as He will make things allright, buT it is hard. Sometimes we get blinded by guilt of what attracts us most and still manage to run the wrong way! I am just now learning to see without the “rose colored glasses” I thought christianity came with. That it is ok to see the brokeness and sin not only surrounding you but sometimes within you. its ok because if you don’t take time to acknowledge it, its hard to take time to acknowledge He who has conquered it and will continue to battle it with you. And if you put yourself in a situation that is already dark from the beginning, it is particularly hard to run the right path in the heat of the moment. Even if you know the path you wanted to run! At that dark moment you just want to get away!… And you fail. The goal most definitely be to not run from evil. As we see in Friday the 13th, you might just get caught.