The Greatest Love of All Time

Ok, so I know some of you love Twilight. And I know some of you love to hate it. But maybe we could just take a step back from our emotional biases and see if there's any way that it might point us to our longing for Jesus. It is a love story, after all. One might even say that it's a story about red love. (If you missed my discussion on red love, you can check it out here.)

When I first heard of The Twilight Saga, I wasn't really interested in all of the hype. I actually tried to ignore it. But then a wise friend said something that really struck me. He said that if so many people love Twilight enough to make it a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, then it must contain some sort of connection to the gospel. There must be some picture of how Christ loved his people, the Church, enough to die on her behalf.

And honestly, I had never really thought about it that way before. But the more I considered it, the more I realized that it must be true. Because God created us to love Him, and if you take a look at what we love, you'll always find a shadow of Jesus cast upon whatever we've chosen to give our affections to. So that realization was enough to convince me that it was time to really take a look at Twilight through the lens of the gospel. 

So that's what I did. I watched the movies. I read the books. In fact, I just saw Breaking Dawn 2 again when it played in the HUB this past weekend at Penn State. I will not lie to you. The first time I saw the ending, I thought it was so beautiful that I pretty much sobbed my way through it. Ok, ok, I know you're not really that surprised...crying is pretty typical for me. But whenever my emotions are triggered like that, it's usually pretty helpful to start asking questions like, "Why?"

(Now in case you haven't seen the movies or read the books but are planning to do so, it would be the appropriate time for me to tell you that I will be talking about the ending. So in the event that you want to be surprised, consider this your spoiler alert.

If however, you are unfamiliar with the Twilight Saga and would like a very brief synopsis, here we go: Edward and Bella end up attending the same high school, fall in love and are obviously meant to be together, but continue to face many obstacles on the way to their happy ending. Despite these obstacles, they manage to get married and eventually embrace their "perfect piece of forever.")

So back to the question of "Why?" Why did I sob through the ending of Breaking Dawn? 

3 reasons

1) It highlights the aspect of grace involved in their love story - which points to the grace that the Lord has given in redeeming us for Himself through Christ. As we see a flashback montage of Bella's meaningful moments with Edward, (set to A Thousand Years by Christina Perri) we are reminded that Bella is utterly amazed that this man, who is her ideal of perfection, would actually even notice, let alone love, her. But we also know that Edward is similarly amazed that Bella could love him for what he is. And that's a picture of what our relationship with Christ is like. Jesus is perfect, and we're not, yet for some reason, He took notice of us, loved us and chose to die for us to make us His perfect Bride. It's pretty amazing.     

2) It highlights the exceptional nature of their love - which points to the exceptional nature of the Lord's love for us. After Bella shows him her favorite Edward moments montage, Bella says, "Now you know. No one has ever loved anyone as much as I love you." And then, of course, Edward replies, "There's one exception," meaning that he is the exception. As they make these big claims, they are declaring their love to be the greatest love of all time. That's what red love does - it makes you feel like you're part of something exceptional - special, rare, extraordinary. And that's the kind of love that Jesus has given us. We are part of the greatest love of all time. The Bible is clear that Jesus demonstrated the greatest expression of love: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). The truth is, no one has ever loved anyone as much as Christ loves His Bride, and if you're a Christian, that means you.

3) It highlights the eternal nature of their love - which points to the eternal nature of the love we have with Jesus. Since Edward and Bella are immortal in the story, the movie ends by zooming in on the word forever as printed on the last page of the book. Because they don't die, death can't separate them. And for Christians, death can't separate us from our love either (Romans 8:38-39). In fact, our love, Jesus is the One who gives us eternal life, so that we can be with Him forever. With Jesus, the words of the Sanctus Real song Eternal ring true: "In this marriage of our hearts, there is no death do us part. For you are eternal, and I am eternally yours."

  

So there you have it. At the heart of the story, we have a guy and a girl, both completely amazed that the other person would actually love them back and want to spend forever with them. If that's not a picture of the gospel of grace, then I don't know what is. Thankfully, unlike Edward and Bella's story, as Christians, our fairly-tale ending with Jesus is real - grace-filled, exceptional, and eternal. 

And that's why Loving Him is Red.

These are just a few ideas of how the ending of Breaking Dawn points to our longing for Jesus.

Any other ways that you see connections to the gospel from The Twilight Saga? 

Wanna be a part of the greatest love of all time, but don't know how?

I'd love to talk to you about it!