the time traveler's wife

well, its been an awful long time since i've been on this blog, perceiving that it is treated much the same way i treat my friend's blogs - no attention amidst the actual making of life events, instead of writing about them. but here i have returned because reflection is necessary.

i want to comment on the much anticipated (by those in the know) release in 2009 of a movie entitled "the time traveler's wife." here's some info:

http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/01/01/first-look-rachel-mcadams-in-the-time-travelers-wife/

based on probably the best science-fiction novels i've ever read (and i read about 6 a month these days), both for a novel idea, an edgy and aggressive worldview-narration, with believable psychology, this novel has given me some welcome thoughts about my other life's interest: theology.

the novel is based on a guy who has a genetic disorder that causes him to "slip" in time, backwards and forwards, usually to momentous events in his life, past and future. it is a romantic love story, one of the best i've come across in a while. its characters are complex, believable, and multidimensional - like the people around me in real life. the thing of particular interest here is the fact that the character is drawn to both traumatic and triumphant events in his life.

now think about God. a being omnipresent, omniscient, well - all the omni's conceivable. now think of our evil. we ask "why does it bother him so? why is he so intently fixated on it? why the morbid theology of the son of God, atonement, original sin? why can't he forget without the need for all this other stuff? but because of all his powers, he is a time traveler too. he is at every moment in our lives, every event, every decision, at a whisk of his thought, at a whim - perhaps more than that - by default and automatically. he is "there". could that not be a nuanced meaning of the name he gave us? "asher ehyah, asher? "i will be-there, howsoever i will be-there" - that is my Name" so let's think about that from his perspective - what does that look like?

every sin! every one you did! he is there"! all knowing, all remembering, all present. it isn't just an event for him. he experiences it forever! he by very nature has to live with it. so when he says, "i will remember their sins no more" don't underestimate the feat achieved by an omni-God. it isn't a trick of the memory like it is for us, for a being that can't forget, has to in a sense rewrite time - something has to atone for a sin that happened in history. so Jesus' innocent sacrifice acts as a counter-balance, a mental block, a sponging of historical fact into himself. God punishes himself in Jesus forever, sins that have happened forever. and so it is finished - tetelestai - because the death of an eternal being is what it takes for an eternal being to forget about eternal sins. the being must die!amen. come Lord Jesus.