Halo 3: Salvation

Halo 3’s religious symbols provide unique retelling of one of the Bible’s stories of true salvation. Today we’ll discuss what salvation really means and where Jesus fits into all of this.

The Ark is the primary focus of the action in Halo 3 and it also serves as a symbol for what’s happening in the story. In order to understand this symbol better, let’s look at the Biblical story of the Ark. This story can be difficult to understand and there’s more to say than I can fit here, so I encourage you to read and study on your own. The account of Noah and the flood is found in Genesis chapters 6-9. Everyone on earth had become so evil and corrupt that God decided, with great sadness, that he should start over. He chose Noah to build an Ark for himself and his family so that they could be saved from the impending destruction of the flood. Likewise, Master Chief is seeking to access the Ark as a means of saving humanity from the Flood.

Noah, but with power armor and grenades.

The story of the flood in Genesis is an incredible story on it’s own, but it also act as yet another example of a theme that is laced throughout scripture- salvation. It’s easy to look at this story and paint God as a blood-thirsty tyrant who enjoys taking vengeance on those who oppose him, but Genesis 6:6 says that seeing humanity’s condition “grieved him to his heart.” Man’s rebellion against God is not like the colonies revolting against the king of England, or humanity fighting to get out of the Matrix. Man’s rebellion against God is more like a stubborn and ignorant child refusing to heed the warnings of a caring parent. God knew that if he continued to let us have our way, things would only get worse.

If you listen closely to the Prophet of Regret’s sermonizing in Halo 2, you may catch a line where he talks about the “cleansing flame.” For those not deluded by the Covenant’s religion, that flame is actually the destructive force of the Halo rings wiping out all life in the universe. However, what otherwise may have been a throwaway line of dialogue brings up a very interesting point- destruction and salvation often go hand in hand.

The haven of salvation is the Ark in both stories, but the flood itself in the Biblical narrative also acts as a form of salvation. In deciding to unleash the flood, God was ridding the earth of the rampant sin and destruction that had taken over his creation. The flood itself is a form of salvation in that it destroys what is evil in us. God’s destruction of sin would wash us away too, since we are sinful. This is why we need an Ark. 1 Peter 3:21-22 describes how Jesus’ sacrificial act, as represented by baptism, is a parallel of the flood that Noah experienced. Accepting Jesus and being submerged in water is a symbolic way of running to Jesus as the Ark and allowing God’s flood to wash away our sin.

Question:

What needs to be cleansed from your life?

That line from the game about “cleansing fire”? that’s especially interesting when you look at 2 Peter 3:7 where it’s said that the next destruction of the earth will come not by flood, but by fire. But more on that next time…

Halo: The Flood (Part 2)

The previous post looked at the Flood from an individual level. This post will examine the Flood from a wider perspective and also dig out the good news that comes from all this depressing talk of depravity.

Guilty Spark and Cortana explain that the Flood only seek hosts that have sufficient cognitive capabilities. There is a fascinating connection drawn here between sin (the Flood) and our pursuits of “intelligence” or “progress.” As I touched on in last week’s initial Halo post, our increasing “intelligence” as a species seems to be pushing us away from acknowledgement of God as Creator. This attribute of the Flood symbolizes that being more advanced and intelligent just makes you a better candidate for being changed into something monstrous.

A cynical worldview knows this too well, with beliefs and mantras that sound something  like, “the more we know, the better we’re able to kill each other.” Just look at how much more devastating wars have become as knowledge increases. The physics genius who made the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, famously remarked, “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” after seeing the destruction caused by his work. For all our advances and progress, we only seem to get better at doing evil.

So now that you’re good and depressed, let’s get to the good news. Halo’s protagonist Master Chief (whom Guilty Spark refers to as “Reclaimer”), is tasked with preventing the destruction of the universe by the Flood. In this case, the solution is for Master Chief to self-destruct the power core of their derelict spaceship so as to destroy Halo and prevent the Flood’s escape.

But what of us and our own personal “Flood” of sin? The answer, of course, is Jesus. Remember in last week’s post how I pointed out how Sergeant Johnson referred to Halo as “God’s own anti-son-of-a-bitch machine”? Well, that actually doesn’t seem too far off. Hebrews 6:19-20 says:

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf…” (emphasis added)

Did you see that? Forerunner. How convenient. The Forerunner in Halo were the ones who long ago contained the Flood and constructed the Halo rings as a means of salvation from destruction. For us, Jesus is the forerunner, going before God and intercepting the sin and destruction so that we can be saved from it.

God knew of our depravity long ago and chose to send Jesus as a sacrifice to provide us with a cure for the Flood of our sin. Jesus is able to not only deal with our sin, but to change us into something new. We don’t have to be monsters forever thanks to the ability of a benevolent Creator to change His creation back to what He intended before the Flood of sin ruined everything. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says:

“Therefore, if anyone is in [Jesus] Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (emphasis added)

Things to think about:

Do you buy all this stuff about depravity and humans being inherently evil? Are there any parts of your life where you always feel like a failure?

Do you consider yourself to be a good person who doesn’t need this religious crap?

Bonus Question: If the Flood were going to attack your house, how would you fortify to defend yourself from them (as c0mpared to regular zombies)?

Use these questions or any other thoughts to discuss in the comments! Next week we’ll look at religion and the Covenant in Halo 2.

Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Halo: The Flood (Part 1)

In this entry we’ll talk about the enemies in Halo that everyone loves to hate, the Flood. We’ll compare the Flood to other types of zombies and how they can be seen as symbols of something that speaks to all of us at the deepest levels.

About halfway through Halo we meet the Flood, a gruesome and dangerous enemy that has been accidentally unleashed by the Covenant. The Flood is an organic parasite that violently and painfully takes over people, reshaping them into horrific creatures. They’re basically space zombies, but with some unique characteristics. The person who’s been infected is no longer themselves, they lose their mind and their identity and become deadly monsters bent on nothing but being difficult and annoying for the rest of the game (and the next two games as well).

The Flood are scary for the same reason that all other zombies are scary. They represent a person being changed unwillingly into something that is mindless, evil, and distorted. Once in this new state, they become dangerous to those around them because they only want to maim, kill, spread their disease, and devour braaaains.

If you’ve played the game, you probably know all this and you’re waiting for me to get the point. Here’s the point: the Flood is like sin. Along with zombies, vampires, and werewolves,  the Flood works as a metaphor for something within us that recognizes our own sin. We are all born into an existence soaked to the core with sin, both through our very nature and through our actions. Another word for this is depravity. Romans 3:23 says: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The Genesis account of the Biblical flood stated that it occurred because, “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5)

Calling these enemies “the Flood” is possibly intended to reference the Biblical story, given that there’s already other religious terminology used in these games. However, the Biblical flood was meant to wipe out evil, whereas the Flood is the evil that wipes out every living thing. When I play this game I see the Flood as representative of something in myself that I don’t want to become. The hordes of fleshy, amorphous monsters act as my own darkness incarnate coming back to haunt me. Just like the crazed survivor who shoots you out of sheer delirium, the most terrible thing would be to become one of those hideous creatures. But the truth is, we’re already there. Our innate depravity is what makes the Flood so terrible. It’s not because of what we want to avoid becoming, but it is because we’re disturbed by what we already are. The Flood is us- gruesome, violent, and bent only on destruction.

I know it’s a downer, but I’ll leave you there to think about that until next time.  Come back Wednesday for a little more about the Flood and something less depressing.