Recently, I’ve
been re-watching some well done game movies. I have, since my
employment working at children’s homes several years ago, been
mostly unable to play certain games at times without a stress or
panic reaction. As a result, either watching someone else play them
(such as my son), or watching some of these well crafted videos on
Youtube is one of the few ways I can enjoy some of these otherwise
inaccessible stories.
A “game movie”
is when someone takes the time and trouble to take the cut-scenes
(in-game stretches of video used to advance the story) and a minor
amount of recorded game play and edits them together into a watchable
movie which focuses on the game’s actual storyline rather than the
actual gameplay. With some games this is a wasted effort as the
developers of the game have not made the effort to focus on good
story. But with others, the results are nothing short of amazing and
well worth the several hours it takes to watch through them.
One series of game
movies I have recently been watching again are from the Assassin’s
Creed games. These are a series
of historically centered games where the player takes on the roles of
both a modern protagonist and a pseudo-historical figure whose story
weaves in and out of both actual historical events and the lives of
actual historical people. The series has covered time periods
including the Crusades, renaissance Italy and post conquest
Constantinople, the American Revolution, the French Revolution,
Caribbean Pirates, late nineteenth century London, and 1st
Century B.C.E. Egypt and all with engaging stories, very human
characters, and a passonate attention to detail. The
recent feature film of the same name set in medieval Spain was also
well done and followed the same template as the games.
The
general idea of each of the games is that you, as the main
protagonist, are reliving the memories of an ancestor found in
samples of DNA. In order to unlock more memories, and thus progress
through the story of the game, you are required to “synchronize”
with your ancestor’s memories by reliving those memories making the
same decisions and taking the same actions they did. In this way
also, the main protagonist is training his own muscle memory to
respond and react with his ancestor’s muscle memories. You do this
by following their code of conduct and honor called the “Assassin’s
Creed” while completing their missions. Failure to abide by the
Assassin’s Creed or failure to complete the mission will result in
desychronization which will then make you return to the beginning of
the memory and start over.
I
was thinking the other day about this concept of “synchronization”
with one’s ancestor. In John 15, Jesus tells his disciples “Remain
in Me, and I in you.” The more familiar King James Version of this
line reads “Abide in me, and I in you.” There have been a number
of spiritual books written on this concept of “Abiding in Christ”
and what that means, but as I have been re-familiarizing myself with
these games, I keep coming back to this idea of being synchronized.
What
was Jesus saying when He told those with Him that night, and through
them us, to remain within Him? In 1 John 2:3-6
(WEB) the apostle writes:
"This
is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments. One who
says, “I know him,” and doesn’t keep his commandments, is a
liar, and the truth isn’t in him. But whoever keeps his word, God’s
love has most certainly been perfected in him. This is how we know
that we are in him: he who says he remains in him ought himself also
to walk just like he walked.”
So,
from John’s understand of what Jesus said that night, remaining in
Him means to do what Jesus did. In other words, remaining in Jesus is
to be synchronized
to Jesus, following His teachings, taking the same actions, and doing
what Jesus did being of the same mind with Him in perhaps the same
way the protagonist in Assassin’s
Creed
must do what his ancestor did and follow the tenets of his ancestor’s
code in order to remain synchronized. In the same way, not following
what He taught and doing what He did is proof of desynchronization
with Him and thus not remaining in Him. And in John’s gospel in
chapter 15:6 (WEB), this desynchronization is just as disastrous and
counterproductive if not much more so as it is in the game:
"If
a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch, and is
withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they
are burned.”
The
goal of the Christian life, upon reflection of this unlooked for
parallel, is full synchronization
with Jesus Christ. This
can be seen throughout the writings of the New Testament and
especially in the writings of St. Paul who wrote in Galatians 2:20
(WEB):
"I
have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but
Christ living in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live
by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for
me.”
And
also in Philippians 3:8-16 (WEB):
“Yes
most certainly, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the
loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may
gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my
own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in
Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know
him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his
sufferings, becoming conformed to his death; if by any means I may
attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already
obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if it is so
that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by
Christ Jesus. Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken
hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and
stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward
the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way. If in
anything you think otherwise, God will also reveal that to you.
Nevertheless, to the extent that we have already attained, let us
walk by the same rule. Let us be of the same mind.”
We
aren’t assassins, and this life is no game, but we do have a Creed
by which we must abide and a figure to whom we must be synchronized
if we are to make progress.
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