Star Wars, Star Trek, and 21^st Century Saints 

Chapter 5

MAY THE FORCE
BE WITH YOU

"Don't be too proud of your technological Death Machine. Its ability to destroy a planet is insignificant beside the power of the Force."¹

Darth Vader, to the Grand Moff Tarkin

They say it has never been properly explained.

"An energy field created by all living things," one theory States,²
A power that holds all the Universe together. Something you can command
And yet can command you if you surrender to it.
The Force is
· Something Han Solo has never seen in his travels from one end of the galaxy to the other
· Something that gives Obi-wan Kenobi his disturbing talents over men's minds and light saber
· Something that has ways that could be learned by the Jedi Knights to help them keep peace
· Something that finally gives young Luke the help he needs to make an almost impossible shot that results in the demise of the Death Star.

"Let yourself go, Luke," says Obi-wan. "Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them." "Let go your conscious self and act on instinct."
"Stretch out with your feelings."³

"I did feel something," says young Luke. "I could almost 'see' the outlines of the remote."⁴
"Congratulations," says Obi-wan, "you have taken your first step into a larger world."⁵
And even Han Solo's skepticism
Tends to waver as he waves Luke good-bye and calls after him the famous phrase,

"May the Force be with you."

Wouldn't it be wonderful
If there really was a Force
Something of great and awesome power
Available to anyone anywhere at any time!
Who would pay the price to learn of its ways
and surrender to its direction?

After all, it's been a long time since we had something like it in fiction.
Thousands of years ago, plays had an element in them missing today in most drama.
The early Greeks didn't always have their characterization down,
The personalities peopling their drama sometimes seemed stilted and wooden
But one fundamental theme maintained the tension and conflict in all of them;

It was the overall arching element they called Fate⁷
That sense of cosmic purpose and direction
and power
That we sometimes call by the name of
Destiny.

By Shakespeare's time, characterization had improved.
Dialogue and three-dimensionality evolved to new heights of reality
But that same element still persisted, giving ultimate significance to these classic dramas.

You could feel it in the pulse of Julius Caesar -
"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries And we must take the current when it serves"⁸

Or lose our ventures.
Or in the dark and gloomy prediction of the witches' apparition of Macbeth -
"Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him.. . ."⁹

Time passed
Dialogue improved, in communication, if not
in content
Scenes were written as slices of life
And everywhere the emphasis became reality.

Unfortunately, by then reality had changed its premises,
Western man had come of age. He brought to his new and amazing array of technological tools for communication
A Universe without cosmic significance
A Mankind without ultimate purpose or destiny
A history born of accident and going precisely nowhere

And Destiny, where it survived at all, became little more than our "lot in life" Enshrined in popular song like
"Que sera, sera; whatever will be, will be" for the old poster;
"Born to Lose" for the Country-and-Western fan
and "Born to Be Wild" for the Hell's Angels.

But nothing significant has ever been changed in history without a sense of destiny.

All the great generals and leaders have always understood that principle
From Alexander the Great, who reputedly rode up to the Gordian Knot, the puzzle marked by the legend "Whoever Undoes This Knot Shall Rule The World" and cut it in half -
To the little goose-stepping, tooth-brush mustached Adolph Hitler, whose stated goal was to play Messiah, "redeem the German people and reshape Europe" and who called his book
Mein Kampf or
"My Destiny."¹⁰

Perhaps the hunger for occult films and books today
Like
The Exorcist
The Omen
The Other
are really also a hunger for an older time when there was a Power greater than a small and insignificant man
which if he tapped or was tapped into by could make of him a great and cosmic significance with all our sophisticated rationalism we really miss The Force.
We dismiss such things as fantasy We of the educated West
Or, hungering for something we are embarrassed to even acknowledge
We go to the developed philosophical world of the East for answers
Hoping against hope to find something that will restore significance to our little lives.

It might be a terrible thing/
a sad and disillusioning thing
If we found there really was such a Force in the Universe
But that it was ultimately true that such a power was utterly careless who won the battle
That when you boiled it all down
The Force was like atomic energy
Just as willing to take life as to preserve it/
Just as ready to help the bad guys as the good guys
Just another name for a rarer, lesser-known technology

And when you got right down to it, Mankind is still ultimately alone
And the only one who ultimately determined the outcome of all history.

Would it hurt you to know
After cheering the heroes
That the Force didn't care who won at all
Because it was nothing more than an impersonal, amoral power?

Would you feel the same
If Darth Vader had spent more time in meditation or whatever
And not only slaughtered Obi-wan Kenobi
But also turned
Luke
Princess Leia
The Rebel Alliance
Chewie, Han Solo and the robots into shrieking, screaming shattered bits of charred bone, flesh and metal?

And there was no sequel to Star Wars One
Because the evil Galactic Empire had accomplished exactly what it set out to do
And with the help of the Force
And the educated evil of their ambitions
They eradicated all freedom and hope and from now on would rule the Galaxy forever?

Perish the thought!

It helped to know that Luke's moment of greatness really began
When the gentle, wise man who had led him so far to victory over all that was evil caught his eye during a momentary lull in that incredible light saber contest with Darth Vader
And with an enigmatic smile of rare and wonderful mystery
Held up his light saber over his head for Darth Vader to take that final, fatal blow -
And ringing in our minds, we remember his words:

"You cannot win, Darth.
If you strike me down
I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

And then, the deadly, sweeping slice of the light saber,
The form and figure of Obi-wan falling, as it slashes into him sideways
And instead of the expected body lying on the ground
The astonishing spectacle of the empty clothes.

Two-thousand years ago
A group of men, small in themselves and without significance
gathered around a gentle, wise Leader who put a dream in their hearts for a Kingdom
And they followed this Man through fierce opposition to the verge of victory

But they didn't understand His words then either:

"It is expedient for you that I go away -
If I do not go, the Counselor will not come."¹¹

"'Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.
But if it dies, it will bring forth many.
The man who loves his life shall lose it The man who loses his life, for
My sake, the same shall save it.
Whoever serves Me, must follow Me
And where I am, My servant will also be."¹²

And in shock, and utter disbelief they watched Him die -
Their beloved leader, friend and counselor
Cut down by His enemies, murdered without
resistance in front of their eyes
Gone, cut off forever, just when they needed
Him most
And they didn't understand.

"You cannot win, Darth -
If you strike me down
I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

It would be some time on from that awful moment
As they gathered together as one, preparing for the coming, awful conflict
That the Wisdom, and the Power and the Presence that had once, in a limited way, been with them from time to time
Came down on a day that rocked the world, to happen to them all at once and together¹³

And that little, frightened band of cowards, betrayers and failures,
Launched a massive offensive that shook the world and turned it upside down.¹⁴
And each new hero from that day on has heard that familiar, still, small Voice
"This is the way - walk in it."¹⁵

And like Obiwan's voice, right there beside Luke, in the cockpit of his fighter
Directions can come, guiding actions to an essential resolution no technology can accomplish

"Trust the Force, Luke!"

Long, long ago, of a galaxy not far away, it was written
"The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by Force."¹⁶
It is not only wild and wonderful to imagine we might tap into a power which could take us far beyond human ability and make us smarter than a targeting computer
It is an empirical Fact.
A Reality more solid than the structure of the worlds
The Force is a Person, and that Person is the Executive Power of the Godhead.
His Name is the Holy Spirit and His power is available to all who will give up their untrustworthy selves to the Voice of that Wise and Gentle Leader.¹⁷

Will you dare to lay aside your limits And trust your life and destiny to the wisdom that holds together the stars?
It will cost you everything you have and are to trust and enter in His army, friend,
But all the Future awaits your decision And you may well be the missing hinge that helps swing history

There is nothing in the tomb but empty clothes - He is not dead, but He is risen.¹⁸
So go out into the darkness, and put your hand firmly in His And may the Force be with you.

Footnotes