One of my treats over the Christmas holidays was to watch the latest Spider-Man film, No Way Home (don't worry there's no spoilers!!). It was a film I, like many, had been looking forward to, and to misquote Peter Parker's legendary credo “with great hype comes great expectations”! Thankfully, I wasn't disappointed!
The premise of the film is a very interesting one, Peter is faced with a choice – with a number of super-villains in his control he can either allow them to be destroyed in revenge for what they have done, or he can try to help them to change. The choice is not an easy one and Peter struggles with it, especially knowing that to help them will require sacrifice on his part. This is a story about second chances and doing the right thing in difficult circumstances (and perhaps against our own self-interest).
This latest series of Spider-Man films all play on the word and concept of 'home': the first film was Homecoming; the second, Far from Home; and the third, No Way Home, and they also deal with issues of family in the widest sense. Because of this, and because of plotline of this latest film being about whether people deserve a second chance and if 'bad guys' can change, this film reminded me of Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).
That story can perhaps be summarised as: far from home – no way home – homecoming. A young man rejects his family, takes his share of the family wealth and travels far from home. There he spends his wealth on living the life of luxury and excess until his money runs out and he becomes destitute. Having abandoned his family and having been abandoned by those he thought were friends, he feels like there is no way home. However, he decides to return home to offer himself as a slave, “but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (verse 20). His father then threw a homecoming party for his son.
Many who hear that parable would agree with the older brother that the prodigal son does not deserve forgiveness or a second chance, just as some people told Spider-Man that the super-villains deserved to die for their actions. But the Christian message is that all of us are like the prodigal son, all of us reject God our Father and misuse the gifts he gives us for our own selfish desires – this is what we call sin. But the great news is that God is willing to give us a second, third, fourth and more chance.
Tragically sometimes we are like one of the super-villains who tells Peter “We don’t need you to save us! We don’t need to be fixed!” - we can be far from home and not realise it, or worse still, not want to go home. Eventually however, the emptiness of that life will become apparent, and even if you feel there is no way home, see your heavenly Father looking for you, and running towards you with the simple invitation: “Come home!”
