“The primary philosophy in Star Trek, stripped of everything else," David Gerrold once wrote, "was 'Love one another.' I think Jesus might have said something like that once too."

Indeed he did (John 5:12, John 5:17).

And the really important part of that is the words "one another." In The Gospel According to Star Trek: The Original Crew, in the chapter entitled "Last Battlefields and Neighbor Love," I wrote about the importance of moving from "othering" to "one anothering," from an embattled, competitive mentality to seeking to create a reciprocity of love by being the first to choose the way of Love.

Love is often thought of as warm, snuggly, happy feelings, or romance, or attraction, and all those things can be a part of it. But Love is a choice. It is active. Love is a commitment. Feeling love, or the emotions we associate with love, is fine, but failing to act on those feelings--or to act in spite of our feelings--is not love.

When Paul talks about love, he talks about what love does, how it behaves. It exercises patiebce and kindness, avoids envy, doesn't brag or boast, turns away from rudeness, refuses to serve itself, moves away from anger and resentment, rejoices in the truth, bears, believes, hopes, and endures. 

​Jesus began this narrative, saying that the greatest love is defined by the action of self-sacrifice. 

I posted last year about why the death of Spock is perfect for Christmas. "As we celebrate the coming of Christ," I wrote, "we celebrate not only his birth, but the bringing of salvation--a salvation wrought through sacrificial death. Certainly, his birth takes precedence during this season and his death and resurrection have their times of remembrance as well. So, it could be said that this is perhaps a more appropriate Easter (or at least Palm Sunday) ornament."

Surely, this stands as an ultimate depiction of love. But maybe it's easier to think about sacrificing ourselves in this way because we'll probably never be called upon to do it. We can feel pretty self-assured in our loving nature when we can say to ourselves, "I'd die for someone I love." But how would it be if we gave ourselves in the sense of not getting what we want? Of sacrificing our comfort, our self-importance, our security, or--and this is particularly salient in our current cultural climate--the idea (or illusion) that we are right?

What if loving meant, not doing good things to those for whom we already have warm feelings, but doing good to those who we dislike or disagree with, to those who annoy or irritate us? Jesus calls us, not to just love those who love us, but to love our enemies. It's amazing how much of an enemy we can make of opposing viewpoints, or those with whose words we take offense. 

Last night, driving home too late in the cold, I was nearly sideswiped by someone who had decided that my desire to not drive 20 miles per hour above the speed limit was inexcusable. I can't tell you the hostility I felt at such gall, such recklessness. Why would someone endager another human being because they were obeying traffic laws? I don't know how to love that person. I may never know.

It's exceptionally difficult to love in spite of anger--to show patience and kindness to someone who is awkward or irritating, or infuriating, even in very small ways. How can we ever, as Star Trek VI invites us to do, love our enemies? How can we sit down to dinner with the Klingons and not fight? How can we put aside cultural differences? How can we be civil, let alone (gulp) forgive?

Like all real love, it isn't easy. It takes work. But if Love can be born among us, can live fully with us, can endure mocking, shame, disgust, torture, and death, then maybe Love can be born in us too. 

This time of year, many of us gather with our families. This can be a particularly difficult place to show love. Maybe it's hard for a parent to not be critical of their adult son or daughter. Maybe it's difficult to hear a passive agressive comment and not lash out. Maybe political, cultural, or religious differences are in tension around the dinner table. But, whatever the difficulties, sometimes love looks like enduring them in all the kindness and peace that we can muster. Sometimes it can be far more difficult than loving our enemies to love our own families.

Even harder may be forgiving ourselves for the hurt we cause and feel.

All we can do, whether for friend, enemy, family, or even ourselves, is remember that Love is a choice we make. Love is doing good to others whether we think they deserve it or not. It's having the heart of a servant and a peacemaker, as best we can muster it. Becase, in the end, none of us deserves love, but all of us badly need it. Rather than focusing on our own need, though, the best way to have love is to engender it.

As I've contemplated this week's Star Trek Advent theme of Joy, I started wondering (a little flatly) what examples of joy we have in Star Trek. Two moments came to mind. (Here there be 35+ year-old spoilers.)

The first was the climactic scene at the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as the whales are released into the ocean. It's a moment of absolute celebration such as we rarely see in the somewhat emotionally restrained worrld of Star Trek. Spock even smiles and laughs, for goodness' sake! In my chapter on the film in The Gospel According to Star Trek: The Original Crew, I liken the scene to a kind of group baptism, recalling this gloriously joyous scene from the 1973 film, Godspell. The scene in Star Trek IV is a celebration of the salvation, restoration, and renewal of the Earth. In that sense, it also recalls the culmination of salvation through the gospel of Christ. 

But, as I thought further, the next scene that came to mind was less loudly celebratory, quieter, more reverent, but nonetheless joyful. At the end of the previous film, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the crew stands silently as Kirk talks with a newly resurrected and restored Spock, hoping for some sign that their friend has truly returned to himself. "Jim," Spock says, after a brief re-enactment of the pair's then-final conversation from the previous film, "Your name is Jim." At this moment, a smile spreads, slowly, but surely, across Kirk's face. Spock remembers him. The joy Kirk experiences here is the reward for the sacrifice og his career, his ship, and his son. He sees recgnition again and the light of life in his dearest friend's face.

This joy of restored relationshop spreads as the entire group gathers around Spock. As the camera pulls back and the film comes to quiet, serene completion, the feeling of joy is as palpable as it will sequel.

The disparity of tone in these two scenes, combined with their remarkable similarity of feeling, caused me to think again on what, after all, joy is. Is it happiness? I don't think so. I think joy is something deeper, something more fulfilling. It can come at a time of exuberance, like the Star Trek IV scene, or in quiet stillness, as in Star Trek III. I also sense something more than an emotional moment to joy. There is a liveliness, a vitality in joy that causes us to celebrate, to resonate with the goodness of something that is truly, deeply good.

And it also occurred to me that these two scenes involve people--a kind of family--coming together. This seemed to illustrate to me that joy often (if not always) has something to do with togetherness, with a communion of the spirit. That joy can come in the presence of other humans, or as we find it alone, in the presence of God. Really, in both instances, God is present. And I can't help but feel that it is the interwoven working of the Spirit of God that energizes and gives life to joy.

How, then, does Joy become a theme at Christmas? The word "JOY" adorns at least as many lawns at Christmastime as the words "Peace" and "Merry Christmas" and "The Reason for the Season," if not more. But the images that bear this word are often quiet and peaceful, not exuberant and festive. But joy encompasses both of these expressions. It is the delight, the relief, of knowing that we are recognized, we are seen by God. We can have Hope. We can be at Peace. Love has come for us. Not just to be found by us, but to pursue us. To seek us out and to save us, though we are lost.

"Long lay the world," the great Christmas hymn "O Holy Night" says, "in sin and error pining, till he appeared and the soul felt its worth." That knowledge, that understanding of the soul feeling its worth is the knowledge that we are not alone, that God has not forgotten us. "We're not momentary specks in an indifferent universe," Benedict Cumberbatch recently told Entertainment Weekly, "We're momentary specks within a very caring, loving universe." 

Last week, I shared the first Star Trek Advent post on HOPE. On my Facebook page, I shared a way you can bring hope to the world. Read my Facebook post here for your opportunity to contribute to real HOPE.
This week's theme is PEACE.

Tomorrow, Tim and I are getting back into our UCP Audio Commentary Series, sitting down to record our commentary for Star Trek Beyond. It's a fitting film to be discussing this week, as our Star Trek Advent meditation points us to Peace.

Peace is a central idea in the film, as the film's villain, Krall, seeks to destroy the "snow globe in space" of the Starbase Yorktown. Yorktown stands as the ultimate symbol of peace in the Federation, a place where peoples from across the Federation dwell together in harmony. It's an incredible visual representation of Star Trek and Roddenberry's dream for the future of humankind.

Of course, in a Christian worldview, such beautiful and complete peace comes only with the ultimate reign of Christ. There is a recognition in the Christian gospel that, much as we work toward and encourage peace in our world today, we as human beings will not achieve its fullness on our own. The film itself, like much of Star Trek, highlights the fragility, even of the Federation's great achievenents, and of humanity itself. It also asks whether working toward an essentially unattainable goal is worthwhile.

In today's world, peace is accutely hard to find. When we can't even conduct civil discourse between friends on social media, when our Christmas and other holiday gatherings can have the potential to break forth into wars of words and injured feelings between family members, when our nation--and indeed, our world--seems so hopelessly divided, peace seems an idea that should be comfortable alongside Santa Claus. It's nice to think about, but it's a myth. "Hear it every Christmastime," the U2 song says, "but hope and history won't rhyme."

But one thing Star Trek and Scripture both highlight is the importance of refusing to succumb to resignation.

In my chapter on Star Trek Beyond in The Gospel According to Star Trek: The Original Crew, I note that the harmony seen on Yorktown "is carefully cultivated and maintained" and that "the paradise we see is the result of years of diplomacy and hard work, not just interstellar warm fuzzies." Peace takes negotiation and maintenence. It takes humility and sacrifice. And peace--whether in international treaties or across family dinnertables--is a thing worth working toward because, even if we never fully achieve it, we will never have it at all if we don't work like it is possible.

​Thankfully, we can have Hope because Peace has come, to reside with us, and to be birthed within us. Peace in our own hearts, peace with ourselves, begins with the understanding that we can have peace with God. In Christ, God demonstrates his love--that he loves us as we are, before we change, with all our flaws--and he offers us peace. We need no longer be set at enmity with God. We therefore no longer be set at enmity with ourselves. If God is for us, who--including ourselves--can be against us?

We can't earn this peace with God. He makes it happen, offers it freely, even as we set ourselves against him. If, then, we can be the recipients of such peace, we can also be the instigators of peace, including and especially toward those with whom we most heartily disagree. It's not easy, and it's not complete. But we join together in the hope of peace--that peace has come, is coming, and will come for all, and that we are a part of the advent of peace in the world in which we live.

If you ask most anyone who loves Star Trek what’s special about it, they will most often say that it’s hopeful. Despite (or perhaps in some ways because of) its genetically modified megalomaniacs, evil twins, and world-consuming cyborg zombies, the message people most often carry away from Star Trek is that there is hope—hope for tomorrow, hope for today, and hope for humanity’s future. “There is a tomorrow,” Gene Roddenberry said, “It’s not all gonna be over with a big flash and a bomb.” At the height of the Cold War, this simple idea that humanity was not going to destroy itself was vitally important.

Hope is still vitally important to humanity, as it always has been. In today’s world, perhaps, it may seem more necessary and more difficult to find than it has in a long time. While it may be true that we won’t destroy ourselves with bombs, there is a fear among many that, if their lives are not destroyed, their way of life will be. The development of social order and culture is part of what makes us human. Often, though, the growth of our culture seems to involve a constant tearing at its fabric. That which we seek to grow, preserve, and nurture is often that which we also must question and distrust, constantly dismantling and rebuilding our sense of purpose and security.

This is a frightening process and one that can make us feel there really is no hope. So, at times like these, it’s important that something like Star Trek exists to help us find hope. But I think we can make a mistake when we look for that hope in the place Star Trek says (in practical terms) we will find it. The hope of Star Trek’s future rests largely on human unity—on laying aside differences and working together. This, in itself, is a good thing and one toward which we should all be moving and to which we should all be contributing.

But the specific idea that humankind will unify as we work together to reach out into space has always seemed to me to be the weakest element of the Star Trek universe’s mythos. There are a number of reasons for this, the most essential of which is perhaps that it’s unrealistic, though it is at least looking for the right things.

Hope rooted in a peaceful future for humankind is a good thing. Hope rooted in generosity and kindness is a good thing. Hope rooted in the vital nurturing of the human soul in a quest for understanding is a good thing. But hoping that we will find these things when we all work together to reach out into space is at odds with human history and human nature.

As it has been said, “No matter where you go, there you are.” Even as we reach out beyond this planet, we are still us. And we will take ourselves—including our limitations, our failures, our weaknesses, and our pride—with us wherever we go. Even if all of us could work together to venture to the next star (and we can’t; only our best scientists and engineers can), we would fight the whole way about how to do it. The project—like every other human endeavor—would and will be fraught with greed, competitiveness, politics, and disagreements.

It’s nice to think that working together to find humanity’s future in space will cause us to grow beyond all that, but there’s simply nothing inherent in the process of space travel that will cure the human condition. Going to space isn’t magic. While it is wonderful, important, and worth doing, it is—like most things—an exchange of one set of complications for another.

As Star Trek itself often shows us, once we go into space—even if we have solved many of Earth’s practical problems, like poverty and disease—the project of cooperation and survival only becomes more complex. Our international political issues soon become galactic and intergalactic political issues. No matter how much we think we have it together here on Earth, there is no accounting for what—or who—we may encounter beyond our solar system and the condition of the human heart will not change just because we’ve carried it to another location.

“The final frontier,” Star Trek writer David Gerrold has said, “is not space. The final frontier is the human soul. Space is where we will meet the challenge.” Gerrold is right that the real future of humanity lies within. And surely, if we go further into space, our outward journey must be an expression of an inward journey, but the challenge of cultivating the human soul is not something we have to travel to space to encounter. We find it every day, right where we live.

Maybe that’s why the Biblical narrative says our ultimate destiny lies, not floating on a cloud somewhere, but on a restored, renewed Creation, as human beings, on Earth. Maybe that’s why humanity’s ultimate hope comes, not in a starship, but wrapped in cloths, small and helpless, snuggled in the embrace of a human mother’s arms.
​
As we embark on interstellar voyages in Star Trek, let’s always remember that the real hope for humankind is living inside us, that it came from God in human skin and that it comes for us, to find us wherever we are, whether far beyond the stars, or right here on Earth. So let’s look to the stars, as Marley says in A Christmas Carol, and remember “that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode.” Let’s marvel at the wonder of humanity and hope for our future, but let’s always remember that hope is with us where we live because God is with us, because Immanuel. Because while we were yet hopeless, hope came for us, that we might hope again.

Recently, I had the honor and privilege of being the guest of honor at a launch party and reception for The Gospel According to Star Trek: The Original Crew. It was an intimate gathering of family and friends who had a part in the book's existence (And in mine! Thanks, mom and dad!) and who have been important in my life. Sure, it was a celebration of my book and the accomplishment of launching my career as an author, but for me, it was about giving thanks. 

I was and am so grateful for every person there and everyone who could not be there. When I began the writing of the book in earnest in 2012, the first thing I did was write the first draft of the Acknowledgements. After only a few years of research, speaking, and writing, and only one year of The Undiscovered Country Project, I was already keenly aware that I could do none of it on my own. My first feeling when I sat down to really begin the book was therefore one of gratitude.

Many of the people in the Acknowledgements section were in the room the day of the reception. So, the first thing I did was read that section aloud to those in attendance. When I think of this journey so far and of that wonderful book launch reception, I am overcome with gratitude. I owe so much to the support and encouragement of friends, family, colleagues, and of course--YOU! You, my dear UCP friends and fans, have supported and sustained me these past five years in ways you cannot possibly know. So, I'd like to take this moment to thank you all. You have been and continue to be an enormous blessing in my life.

And, for those who weren't at the reception and may not know you're in it, as well as for those who'd like to read it, I've included below the entire text of the Acknowledgements for The Gospel According to Star Trek: The Original Crew. I can't express enough what a blessing it is to be able to write and speak these things that mean so much to me. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! May you and your families Live Long and Prosper! (John 10:10)


Acknowledgements

Gratitude doesn’t begin to cover it. In the past eight years since the idea for this book 
began to grow in my mind, I have owed my thanks to so many friends who have offered 
encouragement, support, enthusiasm, and advice, along with so many other essential 
resources and connections, without which this project could not have been completed. I 
am overwhelmingly blessed. It’s impossible to say enough, so I have chosen to keep it 
brief. I offer my deepest thanks, appreciation, and love to all those below. 

Dr. David Naugle: For the eyes with which I was able to see Star Trek—and everything 
else—in a new way. 

My parents, Richard and Jill Neece: For a bedroom to write in away from the world and 
constant faith and love for my whole life. 

My sister, Dr. Kasey Neece-Fielder: For not killing me before I reached my teen years 
and for always believing in me. And for marrying Brian, whom I thank for being my 
sister’s best friend and constant support. 

My grandparents, Phyllis Smith; Lillian, Vernie, and Ann Neece; and great aunt Gethrol 
Barnes: For constant faith and love. 

My parents-in-law, Malcolm and Melba McDow: For long patience and faithful support. 

My grandfather-in-law, William H. Justice, Sr.: For making my education possible and 
blessing me with kindness and love in the last years of his life. 

My Undiscovered Country Project (UCP) First Officer Tim Van Orden: For constant 
faithfulness, believing in me when I didn’t, and teaching me the true meaning of the word 
“Shiny!” 

Beth Van Orden: For making Tim a better man and being a marvelous audio commentary 
guest. 

Rev. Dr. Scott Youngblood: For inspiring Tim. 

Jeff Sellars: For friendship, advice, and beginning my relationship with Wipf and Stock. 

Dr. Mark J. Boone: For years of friendship, an editing partnership, guest blog posts, and 
introducing me to Jeff. 

Adam Jones: For kind encouragement and wise counsel, without which this book might 
not have found itself. 

Mike Poteet: For guest blog posts, reading chapters, and faithful advice and aid. 

Eugene Chu: For 25+ years of friendship, and the computer on which most of this book 
was written. 

Jenay Hale: For transcribing notes and a lot of this book, and for loyal friendship. 

My former UCP Communications Officer, Hannah Vestal: For faithful service, a sweet 
spirit, and nerdy friendship. 

Rich Frohlich and Texas Radio Theatre: For making higher quality UCP audio 
commentaries possible. 

John Humphreys: For getting me through school and becoming my friend for life. 

Carol Riggan and the Riverside Area Community Club, Riverside, Iowa: For welcoming 
me to Trekfest when I was unbelievably young and green and sitting me down with 
Walter Koenig and BarBara Luna. 

Walter Koenig: For honesty.

BarBara Luna: For enthusiasm for my fledging work and introducing me to Curtis 
Webster. 

Curtis Webster: For Spirit of Star Trek, a helping hand, and for introducing me to Larry 
Nemecek. 

Larry Nemecek: For kind support and valuable advice.

Steve Neill: For Spock ears, encouragement, and so much more. 

All the “Spockologists” and all the friends and fans of UCP: For keeping my warp engine 
humming with your enthusiasm and investment. 

Alyssa and the owners and staff of Roots Coffeehouse: For giving me a place to feel at 
home, a place where many, many hours of research were done and a big chunk of this 
book was written. 

Memory Alpha contributors and editors: For maintaining the finest source of in-universe Star Trek knowledge on Earth, without which my work would have been nearly impossible.

Christina Luckings of Chrissie's Transcripts Site: For dedication and generosity in creating a vital resource I simply could not do without.

Matt Wimer, Rodney Clapp, and everyone at Cascade Books: For enthusiasm, flexibility, 
support and faith.
 
Leigh Hickman: For true friendship. Every semicolon in this book is dedicated to you.
​
Finally, and most importantly, I am grateful to and for my wife Melissa and son Aidan, 
who are why I get up in the morning, why I have hope for my life, and the reason I want 
to be a better version of myself. I love you both so very much. 

Keeping Busy

The two of them kept up with Shop LLAP despite their own busy schedules.

The shop itself was set up in the house of Julie Nimoy, Dani’s mother. That is where Dani did the majority of the work, from customer service to packing and shipping orders. But the grandfather/granddaughter business associates did find time to work together. 

“My grandpa and I were both busy - he was traveling and still working a little bit and I had a full time job - but we constantly emailed and made an effort to meet up once a week or every other week. We did have “business meetings” at his house in his office. . . . I would go over, and for an hour or two we’d go over things, he’d sign some merchandise and then we would do some brainstorming. Once we finished, we’d hang out and eat lunch in the kitchen.”

“He taught me so much, like how to communicate better in business and how to problem solve.” ​

If you’re a Star Trek fan and you’ve been on Twitter for awhile, it’s likely you’ve been one of the million-plus followers of @TheRealNimoy, the account of actor Leonard Nimoy, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 83. Leonard was very active on Twitter, and his tweets were usually capped off with the abbreviation “LLAP” - Twitter-speak for “Live Long and Prosper,” that famous Vulcan greeting from Leonard’s Mr. Spock.

Today, more than a million people still carry him on their “following” list and every once in awhile, in several hundred timelines, an erstwhile @TheRealNimoy tweet pops up and reminds us of a different, kinder era. And above that tweet, the words “A retweet for my Poppi. #LLAP.”

Dani Schwartz

The person behind the retweet is Dani Schwartz, Leonard’s granddaughter. Dani maintains the @TheRealNimoy account, and she also runs the Twitter account for the online retail business, Shop LLAP, that she and Leonard co-founded. Dani, who refers to him as “Poppi,” is the reason Leonard joined Twitter in the first place. ​

Avoid the Planet Earth at all costs. …Farewell.
Devastation. Destruction. The end of the world. It is against this grim future that Kirk, Spock and the crew of the Enterprise struggle in this film. They are fighting to prevent, as Kirk puts it, “the end of every life on Earth.” Cue intense music, dark villain, violent struggle, lens flare, etc. – this is how one might expect the story to be told. But, no. This is the funny one with the whales.

In my first post for this week, I talked about the missing element that was added to the original cut of Star Trek II – Hope. Certainly, the hope of Spock’s resurrection was enough to lift that film from is sorrowful conclusion. But that hope turns out to be not simply the return of a beloved character, but the salvation of the human race. In Star Trek IV, hope explodes all over the place. It’s a decidedly joyful film that, even as it contains a battle against impossible odds, looks ahead with optimism. In the end, as the whole Enterprise crew is baptized in the San Francisco bay, even Spock smiles.

But, this is Good Friday.

We’re supposed to be contemplating the suffering and death of Jesus. Indeed, we should. And on Sunday, we should celebrate his resurrection. But my hope with this Star Trek Holy Week is that we can look at those events through the lens of the whole gospel.

In Star Trek II, we see an image of the suffering and death of Christ and get a hint of what his death has earned. In Star Trek III, we see his resurrection and the new life given to those who dedicate themselves to him. In Star Trek IV, we see the culmination of salvation history.

Our Christ figure returns on the clouds with his followers to restore what was lost. He undoes the damage caused by human sin and not only saves humankind, but restores order to Creation.

I want to go back a bit to our image of Khan as our sinful selves. He is, metaphorically, Ahab – the whale hunter. In this film, human sin has marred creation. When the probe comes, the damage we have caused results in impending catastrophic death. The villains in this picture, executive producer Harve Bennett says, are the whale hunters. They represent what Gillian calls, “the slaughter of…inoffensive creatures,” the destruction of innocence. “This is mankind’s legacy,” she says.

So, once again, our foe is a whale hunter. But, as always in Star Trek, the external struggle signifies an internal one. The whale hunter lives in all of us and we all share culpability, as evidenced by the words of the president of the UFP “Captain Kirk, You and your crew have saved this planet from its own short-sightedness.” The whole planet is responsible. Earth has earned its end. But we are rescued just the same, even though we do not deserve it.

The grace of God is evident in this film series, and it wears pointed ears. Everything that happens in this film is made possible by Spock. His death has saved the crew. His resurrection has brought them together to be with him. His plan leads to salvation. His return restores Creation.

I also found it interesting this time through the film that Kirk releases the whales. Returning to my analogy of Kirk as the Church, it echoes to me the idea that Christ has chosen his Church – his people, all believers in him – to do the work of bringing his kingdom. Only when he returns will his ultimate rule and reign take hold, but until then, he entrusts his followers with the task of setting loose on the Earth that which he has earned.

After releasing the whales, Kirk says, “Why don’t they answer? Why don’t they sing?” This reminds me that we don’t always see the fruits of our labors right away, that God’s timing is not ours. Like the whales moving into position to sing, there are forces at work that we do not see. It’s not by our hands alone that God’s will is carried out. He works in ways we don’t understand. We may get impatient, but the promised restoration will come.

So, as we head into Good Friday and Easter Sunday, I hope this Star Trek Holy Week can help us to see the cross of Christ as the place where all the work of salvation was finished. When Jesus cried, “It is accomplished!” he did so because he had accomplished something. And, as Nikos Kazantzakis puts it, “It was as though he had said, ‘Everything has begun.’”

When we look at the cross, let’s not just remember the empty tomb, but the restoration of all Creation that is to come. Let’s remember that we are participants in salvation history and that, though it seems to take too long, salvation comes just in time. We don’t deserve it, we cannot earn it, but God gives it by his grace. What an incredible blessing!

I hope this Easter season finds you restored, renewed, with a fresh vision for your “enterprise” – your calling and destiny – whatever that may be. I hope you’ll gather with those you love, with your fellow believers in Christ, at the foot of the cross and say along with Kirk, “My friends, …we’ve come home.”

For more on Spock as a Christ figure in these films, you can read my essays in Spockology. You can even get a signed, personalized copy!

“The Genesis effect has in some way regenerated Captain Spock.”

​It could be argued that talking about the Resurrection midway through Holy Week is a bit like shooting off fireworks on June 29th. But, as I mentioned in the Star Trek III audio commentary, these films are like Scripture jazz. All of the elements are there, but sometimes they’re rearranged.
​
In Star Trek III we have, in many ways, a very different picture of the resurrection from the one depicted in the Gospels. In fact, one YouTube commentator said that the Spock-as-Christ metaphor “falls apart completely” in this film because “Jesus Christ rose from the dead under his own power…whereas Mr. Spock needed a whole lot of help from his friends.”

She’s right, of course, that Spock’s resurrection doesn’t match up with the gospel narrative in some significant ways. But that doesn’t mean the metaphor “falls apart completely,” just that it’s been remixed. There are two events in the film that closely resemble the resurrection narratives in the Gospels – the discovery of McCoy in Spock’s quarters, where the seal has been broken and two guards stand silent and David and Saavik finding Spock’s empty torpedo casket with his grave clothes left behind. It’s as though Biblical imagery is used twice to denote two parts of the resurrection – the spiritual and the physical.

And, in a very real sense, Spock is alive at this point in the film. His body and soul are not joined, but he is alive. Of course, we need some kind of adventure to take the Enterprise crew through another movie and it would be too easy for a sci-fi story to just have Spock show up and say, “Hi.” So, things are remixed. But, since they are, let’s ask what value that might have. If the story in Star Trek III doesn’t directly reflect the events immediately following the resurrection of Christ after a certain point, what does it reflect?

As a mysterious girl called Erin points out in these three videos, the film mirrors where we are now, after the resurrection and ascension of Christ. In my last post, I said that the cross transforms how we deal with both death and life. Star Trek II is about how we deal with death in light of the gospel. Star Trek III is about how we deal with life.

The Genesis effect, in these films and in a Biblical worldview, is “life from lifelessness.” In the same way that this effect, which Kirk calls “the power of God,” has regenerated Spock, so God’s power has regenerated Christ and all those who put their faith in him. The resurrection is the living result of Christ’s sacrifice. But it’s not just something that comes after physical death. It’s a renewal that comes to our hearts right here and now.

Because of Spock’s sacrifice, Kirk and company are now willing to give up everything, even their own lives, in service to him. Spock asks them to do this, but he cannot force them. They must choose for themselves. Similarly, Jesus calls us to obedience, but he does not call us to earn our salvation through our actions. He has won the victory for us and there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. So, it can be easy to decide that it doesn’t matter what we do because Jesus has our sins covered.

But it does matter.

“We love because [Christ] loved us first,” John’s writes in his first epistle, “If anyone says ’I love God’ and yet hates his fellow Christian, he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” How we live is important because it demonstrates where our hearts are oriented. If we truly understand that Christ is our Savior, he will also be our Lord. To live in grateful response to the redemption he has won for us is to, like Kirk and the Enterprise crew, devote ourselves completely to him at the expense of all else, knowing that our truest fulfillment is found in him.

But it’s not something we do to earn a prize or escape punishment. It’s simply the only logical response. As Erin points out in her video: What if, when Admiral Morrow told Kirk that he’d lose everything if he went after Spock, Kirk had capitulated? What if he’d told his crew mates, “Morrow’s right. I can’t risk my career for Spock.” The audience would have been incredulous. Why? Because no one who has received the kind of love that Spock showed would be expected to just walk away. Kirk has to give everything for Spock. He simply has no other alternative.

“What I did,” he tells Sarek, “I had to do.” When Sarek questions Kirk about the cost, including Kirk’s ship and even his son, Kirk replies, “If I hadn’t tried, the cost would’ve been my soul.” Or, as Paul says in Philippians 3, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.”

And, if we read further into the symbols of the story and beyond the literal events, we see that Kirk and company are journeying to rejoin Spock’s body with his eternal spiritual essence. In the same way, we as Christ’s Body (the Church) are ultimately rejoined with the eternal Christ. On Vulcan, we have a picture of communion with Christ in a heavenly place, a joyful reunion as one body with the one we’ve risked everything for.

The rewards at the end of a life of faithfulness are great. But our focus must not be on crowns in glory. If we chase after doing good works for our own gain, we miss the point entirely. Our focus must be always, only on Jesus. It is him we seek above all else because he is the one who loved us first and has saved us for himself. We are not saved by what we have done, but by what he has done for us. Because of this, our “first, best destiny,” as Spock puts it, is found in him. Therefore, in gratitude, we pursue him, seeking to honor him with our lives with the kind of devotion and dedication the Enterprise crew show Spock in Star Trek III. It is then that we are fulfilled. It is then that we are fully alive, fully human. It is then that we truly “Live Long and Prosper.”

For more on Spock as a Christ figure in these films, you can read my essays in Spockology. You can even get a signed, personalized copy!

​“How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life.”

​I suppose many people grow up in a tradition wherein Palm Sunday is about the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. I did not. In Palm Sunday worship services throughout my youth and into adulthood, I never carried palm fronds down the aisle. That practice was not a part of my tradition.

Instead, my pastor focused on the crucifixion of Christ on Palm Sunday. We didn’t have a Good Friday service, so we did at the beginning of Holy Week what most people do at the end. But this service was not just telling the story of the crucifixion. Every year, my pastor shared in visceral, painful detail the physical effects of Roman scourging and crucifixion on the human body. I believe I was about 10 years old the first time I felt I could sit through it. I couldn’t help but cry.

This sermon had the effect of rendering the entire week before Easter a seven-day meditation on the crucifixion and death of Jesus. It was a week of Good Fridays. Filmmaker Martin Scorsese tells the story that his priest always told him that his movies were “Too much Good Friday, not enough Easter Sunday.” At its first screening for a test audience, Star Trek II was also “too much Good Friday.”

I relate the story in our audio commentary that Harve Bennett tells about that screening – the audience filing out of the theatre as though leaving a funeral, Harve thinking, “What have we done?” and a rush to fix the film. Clearly, there was something missing. No one wanted audiences going home from a Star Trek picture feeling depressed.

The ending as we see it now had a far different reception. Bennett describes the audience rising to their feet “as one, with tears in their eyes and applause on their hands.” This, he says, felt good and felt right. Clearly, Bennett and the cast and crew ofStar Trek II (against the objections of director Nicholas Meyer) had restored to the film what had been missing before.

What was missing was quite simple: Hope. The end of Star Trek II all but promises that Spock will return in Star Trek III. It does not, however, let us see Spock actually return. There’s no shadow of the resurrected Vulcan, no pan to Leonard Nimoy’s face with a wink in our direction. We simply know that death may not be the end.

During all those weeks of Good Fridays growing up, in the back of my mind was always the old Tony Campolo sermon, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s comin’!” The suffering and death of Jesus was a hard thing to meditate that deeply on – especially with the knowledge that, as the Dennis Jernigan song says, “It was my sin that nailed him there.” But of course I knew that resurrection was on its way.

Still, I’m glad I had that time of deeper reflection on the death of Christ and on my culpability for it. As Kirk says in Star Trek II, “How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life.” Kirk, too, is culpable for the death of Spock. Everything that happens in this film is a result of a decision he made 15 years earlier. It is Kirk’s past, Kirk’s sin, which comes to confront him in the form of Khan. Relentless and unyielding, Khan represents the impending spectre of death that has haunted him throughout the film.

“Other people have birthdays,” McCoy complains to Kirk, “Why are we treating yours like a funeral?” Kirk’s inability to face age and death are turning what should be a celebration of life into a time of mourning. What Kirk must learn is that we all deal with death, even as we live.

From a gospel perspective, how we deal with death is transformed by the victory Christ has won over it. The sorrow and pain are still present but, as Paul says, “We do not mourn like those who have no hope.” The hope of resurrection is one we don’t see yet, but that we can know is coming. I certainly knew how the story of Jesus was going to end when I was 10 years old, but that didn’t keep me from mourning for the pain and suffering of Jesus and the loss felt by those who loved him.

In the same way, every time I watch Spock die in Star Trek II – every single time – I’m affected emotionally. I’ve seen the next picture. I know Spock comes back. But I still mourn him.

At the same time, I am moved by what Spock’s sacrifice means for Kirk. Spock doesn’t just save Kirk’s life. He delivers Kirk from the death that he has earned. Because of this, it is not just an external victory against Khan that Spock has earned for Kirk, but an internal victory against a kind of “death while living,” the loss of hope in the face of mortality.

Spock restores Eden to Kirk’s heart and Christ restores us to Eden as well. And he does this at the cross. The empty tomb is important, but it is not the victory. It is the cross that is the victory because it is there that Christ pays the price for our salvation. The resurrection is the proof.

“Live long and prosper,” the dying Spock says to Kirk, and because of Spock’s death, Kirk is able to do just that. In the same way, Jesus said that he came so that we may “have life and have it more abundantly” and it is through his death that we receive this life.

As we start off our Star Trek Holy Week on a kind of Good Friday note, I hope it will cause you to reflect on what makes Good Friday good – that Jesus, like Spock, died in our place. He accepted the consequences of our sin, took our burden upon himself and paid our debt for us. Because of this, we can deal with death – and life – in a whole new way.

For more on Spock as a Christ figure in these films, you can read my essays in Spockology. You can even get a signed, personalized copy!