My wife and I saw Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” on its opening night. Despite certain casting decisions relating to theme and story arc, I couldn’t help but come away preoccupied by the thought of how Christ is the better Odysseus.
A strange comparison, you say? Not really. In Scripture, Christ often compares Himself to well-known biblical characters to illustrate his own pre-eminence. In Matthew 12:41-42, He refers to Himself as greater than Jonah, and then greater than Solomon. In Luke 11:21-22, Christ tells a brief parable presenting Himself as the stronger man who must defeat the captor of souls, apparently referring to Satan. And there are many other examples in Scripture where Christ Himself or someone else highlights through comparison the unparallelled good, true and beautiful nature of our risen Christ.
But Odysseus is mythical, you may protest. What can myth have to do with the obvious and undeniable truth we find in Christ’s life, death and resurrection?
That’s a good question, my friend, and I will point to C. S. Lewis to answer it. In “God in the Dock,” Lewis describes the Gospel as the one great and true ultimate myth that explains all other myths, which are mere shadows pointing to it. “By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle,” Lewis writes. “To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths.”
I believe Lewis is on to something here. After all, isn’t this the tactic that Paul employs in his speech to the Greeks on Mount Areopagus in Acts 17?
So, if I have convinced you the question is valid, let us now think about how Christ is indeed the better Odysseus.
First, Odysseus, though heroic, was famously unable to save his men. He tried to do so, but he failed. He mourned their loss and returned to Ithaca alone. The Christ of Scripture, however, was able to save all his children. “I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost,” he says in John 17:12. Christ, to use Paul David Tripp’s helpful shorthand, is able to get us “all the way home.”
Second, Odysseus, though marching (or sailing) into Hell itself, and able to see and talk to his departed men there, was unable to rescue any of them from it. Christ, of course, is empowered to make those dead in their trespasses and sin alive again, and to raise them up in heavenly places, according to Ephesians 2.
Third, Odysseus was clever enough to build the Trojan horse of legend as a means of invading and overcoming a hostile city, Troy, bringing about the death of many. Can we not think of Christ as someone who became a kind of Trojan horse, entering a hostile world and winning it over – rather than destroying it – through His own death and resurrection, thus bringing about the salvation of many?
Finally, while Odysseus was able to restore his kingdom for a time, Ithaca soon fell, never to rise again. Christ’s kingdom, by contrast, is being restored even as we speak. Someday, He will return to make all things right, and this kingdom and His rule will never end. Hallelujah, what a Savior!
If you are reading this and have put your hope in kings or princes, in idols of any form, or even in your own version of self-salvation, today would be a good day to transfer your allegiance to the one true King. His “hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, [nor] his ear dull, that it cannot hear” (Isaiah 59:1). Truly, “[H]e is able to save to the uttermost” (Hebrews 7:25).
Bart Harmon is a Montgomery attorney and life-long Alabama resident, as are several of his children and grandchildren.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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