Forget Everything You Think You Know

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

I once took a speech class where our first assignment was to get up in front of the rest of the class and tell the story of how we came to know Christ in no more than two minutes. It seemed like a piece of cake at first. I mean, who knows more about my story than me, right? As I began to work on my speech however, I found myself having an extremely difficult time trying to communicate the complexity and yet simplicity of my journey with Jesus Christ.

I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to be a Christian; the Lord wooed me. He invited me into a relationship with Him by revealing my helplessly sinful state of being, while simultaneously offering Himself as the payment for my wrongdoings. And yet, all it took was a simple prayer at my desk at work one day to receive the fullness of the work of Christ on the cross.

As I have continued to grow in my faith and understanding of what it means to be a Christian, I have found myself repeatedly awestruck and perplexed by the paradox of the Christian life. Marvel’s Doctor Strange tells the fictional story of an incredibly intelligent man who struggles with the paradoxes involved in his own life as a sorcerer sworn to protect the world from unseen enemies. While fighting the threat of a world-eating being from another dimension, Strange is confronted with the paradoxes of faith, surrender, and identity.

Faith

Dr. Stephen Strange is a hot-shot neurosurgeon living in New York City. He’s intelligent, wealthy, handsome, cocky, and in control of his own destiny … or so he thinks. A terrible car accident causes irreparable nerve damage to his hands and robs him of his ability to perform surgeries. With the only thing that gave his life meaning stripped away from him, Strange sets out on a journey to heal his hands and get his old life back. Little does he know that his adventure will stretch him in ways he never thought possible and change the course of his life forever.

Many Christians can identify with Strange’s story. Loss of purpose and meaning is a devastating blow that occurs all too often in a person’s life, and sets them on a path in search of answers. Often times, people are led by the testimony of others and such is the case for Stephen Strange. While trying desperately to regain the strength and masterful skill in his hands through rehab training, Strange is told of a man named Jonathan Pangborn who healed completely from a major back injury. At first, Strange is in utter disbelief until he takes a look at the man’s medical file and decides to go see him for himself. Sure enough, the once paralyzed man is now playing basketball with friends as if nothing ever happened. Turns out Pangborn came to see Dr. Strange after his injury but Strange refused to see him. In a moment of brokenness, Strange pleads with him, “You came back from a place there’s no way back from … I’m trying to find my own way back.”

It is here that Strange, like so many Christians, begins his faith journey. Given only the testimony of another person who has been healed, Strange sells everything he owns and buys a one way ticket to Kathmandu, Nepal in search of a place called Kamar Taj. When he finally finds it, Strange meets the Ancient One, a guru of sorts who is the primary teacher at Kamar Taj. Strange immediately begins asking questions about the healing methods being practiced there, believing it to be a place of experimental medical practices. But the Ancient One isn’t a doctor or a surgeon, and upon telling Strange that healing of the spirit is far more important, Strange is incredulous.

Strange: I spent my last dollar getting here, on a one-way ticket, and you're talking to me about healing through belief? Ancient One: You're a man looking at the world through a keyhole, and you spent your whole life trying to widen that keyhole. To see more, to know more. And now, on hearing that it can be widened in ways you can't imagine, you reject the possibility? S: No, I reject it because I do not believe in fairy tales about chakras, or energy, or the power of belief. There is no such thing as spirit! We are made of matter, and nothing more. We're just another tiny, momentary speck within an indifferent universe.

As someone who once identified as an Agnostic, I can sympathize with Strange’s misunderstanding of faith, and perhaps you can too. For his whole life, he has been in charge of his own destiny. He studied and practiced the science of medicine for years, mastering the functions of the human body and growing in his limited understanding of the world around him. But now, his incredible knowledge and understanding of the physical world is actually what blinds him to the reality of the spiritual world, namely a life of faith. Strange, like many people before they come to faith in Christ, thinks that faith is the blind acceptance of an ideology that runs against everything he knows to be true about the world around him. But the paradox of faith is that it takes an acute understanding of what is in front of you, to believe in something more.

Too often we as Christians label faith as the denial of anything that would resemble doubt, fear, or uncertainty. However, true faith only exists in the face of uncertainty, just like true courage only exists in the face of fear. You cannot believe for something greater when you categorically deny that the lesser exists. For example, you cannot believe for healing if you do not first accept that you are sick. This isn’t to say that you claim sickness as your ultimate state of being, but that you claim God is ultimately above sickness and that through Him, healing is attainable. The same concept rings true in all areas of faith. In order to believe you can be saved you must first realize that you are powerless to save yourself. That is the first stumbling block that must be hurdled before coming to saving faith in Christ.

Surrender

After experiencing the reality of the unseen realm for himself through the magical powers of the Ancient One, Strange becomes a student at Kamar Taj and spends most of his time studying and exploring this new found spiritual world. But he quickly realizes that conjuring rifts in time and space and using magic to forge shields and weaponry doesn’t come so easily to him. After an exhausted Strange tries and fails yet again to conjure a rift, the Ancient One gives him some peculiar advice.

Ancient One: You cannot beat a river into submission. You have to surrender to its current, and use its power as your own. Strange: I ... I control it by surrendering control? That doesn't make any sense. AO: Not everything does. Not everything has to. Your intellect has taken you far in life, but it will take you no further. Surrender, Stephen.

In the following scene, the Ancient One uses magic to travel to the freezing peaks of Mt. Everest with Strange, and leaves him there to find his way back to Kamar Taj alone. It is here that Strange learns to surrender his need for control and submit to the teaching of the Ancient One, using his precarious situation as motivation. He conjures a rift that leads back to Kamar Taj just in time to avoid the consequences of exposure to the frigid weather.

Strange experienced first-hand the spiritual world at Kamar Taj. He saw the incredible works of magic done by the Ancient One and his fellow students right in front of him. Strange wore the magician’s robes; he looked just like all of the other students who could practice magic with ease. He read every book he could get his hands on in record time. He studied hard and filled his mind with the knowledge of magic and the spiritual world. If the old adage “seeing is believing” is true, then Strange should have had more than enough to jump right in to the magic arts and excel. But despite all of this, Strange couldn’t even perform the simplest of magical spells. It is only when Strange let go of his ego and surrendered control, that he became a true disciple.

The very notion of belief in God demands that the believer surrender their own compulsive attempts to be Him. Just like Strange, we all make feeble attempts to master that which we don’t understand in order to maintain some semblance of control. But it’s exactly when we surrender control to God that He reveals to us what true life and understanding is. When Strange surrendered his need for control and embraced the mystery of his new life, he was able to walk in authority and power. Every Christian must go through this same exchange with the Father in order to become a true disciple. True life and understanding is not found in study or works, it is found in a person and His name is Jesus Christ. The paradox of surrender is this, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25) Surrender your life to Christ, and I promise you’ll truly find it.

Identity

Even while Strange is mastering his new found magical abilities and growing in wisdom and understanding, the answer to one question still alludes him: who am I? Throughout the film, he constantly reminds himself and those around him that the only reason he’s learning about sorcery is so that he can heal his hands and get back to his old life. He even rejects the rank of master and insists on being called “Doctor” Strange. But it’s clear that Strange’s destiny is intertwined with the fate of the world, and the world is in dire need a hero.

An evil world-eating monster from a dimension outside of time named Dormammu has been summoned to Earth by Kaecilius, a powerful sorcerer and former student at Kamar Taj. The battle to save the world is one of epic proportions, and it eventually claims the life of the Ancient One. Her spirit leaves her body, a manifestation they call an “astral body”, and it is here that she gives Strange his final and most important lesson.

Ancient One: You have such a capacity for goodness. You always excelled, but not because you crave success, but because of your fear of failure.

Strange: It's what made me a great doctor.

AO: It's precisely what kept you from greatness. Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all.

S: Which is?

AO: It's not about you.

To quote another popular Marvel comic, “With great power comes great responsibility.” But the mark of a true superhero is that he realizes his ability was not given to him to serve himself, but to serve those around him. Strange tried his entire life to find his identity in his work, whether that was as a surgeon or a sorcerer. But it wasn’t until he accepted his role as hero that he finally discovered his true identity and purpose. He surrenders his dream of healing his hands and returning to his old life, and faces Dormammu with only the fate of the world in mind.

In a stunning twist of bravery and cunning, Strange uses a spell which manipulates time to trap himself and Dormammu in the Dark Dimension. He essentially sacrifices himself for eternity in exchange for the lives of every person on Earth (sound familiar?) Realizing that he has been outwitted, Dormammu releases Strange from the Dark Dimension and abandons his attempt to destroy the world, taking Kaecilius and his followers with him.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are all called to this kind of bravery. The two greatest commandments according to Christ are, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39) Love God and love people as you love yourself. Notice how your ability to love others and your ability to love yourself are intimately related. You cannot discover the fullness of your identity outside of the context of community. Your identity is found in Christ, and Jesus was all about people. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) The paradox of identity is that you cannot find yourself within yourself. True identity is found in Christ and the fullness thereof is only found in the context of community.

Living the Christian life isn’t easy, but it’s one of the simplest decisions I’ve ever made. Marvel’s Doctor Strange helped me to embrace the wonderful paradox of faith in Christ and left me in greater awe of the amazing God I serve. Give it a watch and allow the Lord to speak to you in a new and exciting way. Believe that He is good, surrender to the mystery of His ways, and allow His grace to inspire you to action. I have only one piece of advice, “Forget everything you think you know.”

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