Touched by a Vampire (15 page)

Because we are sinful creatures, born into a sinful world, we are no longer free to choose good or evil. Sin has wrapped us in
heavy chains, and we can’t escape. Human beings are broken creatures, and we have no way to break free from our love of sin, and sin isn’t just an individual choice. Sin infects the world and changes what it means to be human. I can no more
choose
to turn my back on sin than I can
choose
to grow six inches. I can no more
will
myself to live in goodness than I can
will
my hair to start growing in lavender and curly instead of brownish and straight. I can no more
decide
to climb out of the hole I am stuck in than I can
decide
to learn to fly.

In Romans, Paul explains that “righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (3:22–24). Righteousness—being good and right in God’s eyes—doesn’t come from our own moral efforts, even the most strenuous efforts. There are no exceptions from the rule of sin. All people are caught in sin. Being good and right in God’s eyes is a gift He gives through faith in Jesus.

In recognizing that we can’t make ourselves good by our own efforts, we can find true freedom. God can set us free us from all our desperate and hopeless attempts to make ourselves worthy. Are there things about yourself that you think will never be good enough? Things you keep hidden because you’re convinced God couldn’t love you if your weakness showed? Maybe you’re someone who constantly sets goals and boundaries,
resolving to do better, and then ends up yelling at yourself because you’ve failed once again. Maybe you don’t bother to set goals because you’re so beaten down and discouraged by your own repeated failures. If you’re frustrated by your own efforts to be good, you’re not alone. God can set us free from all of this, from all our self-loathing and useless efforts to make ourselves into the people we think we ought to be.

We cannot force ourselves to be good. Sinful human nature is drastically unlike vampire nature in the Twilight Saga because it
cannot
be overcome through effort or will. Human beings are trapped by sin. We are mired in our dark desires in ways that we cannot shake free. This may sound negative, gloomy, and hopeless, but it is truly incredibly good news. It sets us free from our useless efforts to save ourselves, to force ourselves to be good. Understanding the way we are trapped can help us understand just where our hope lies. We need the grace of Jesus Christ if we are to hope for transformation. We tremble in need of grace. We are broken and in need of healing.

God pours grace over us. Tons of it. Amazing grace. Abundant grace. Overflowing grace. God gives us countless good gifts, and He doesn’t give them because we’re deserving. God doesn’t give them to us because we put forth a lot of effort. God’s gifts are given freely, graciously. There are no conditions we have to
meet before we can be worthy to receive them. God gives grace to save us, grace to transform us, and grace to make us truly good. All of it comes to us even though we’re broken, even though we’ve failed, even though we sin.

The book of Romans tells us about this free grace. “You see,” Paul says, “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (5:6–8). Notice how Paul points out that we didn’t have any power in all this. God shows us His love by offering us something we can never make ourselves ready for or worthy of.

We’re set free from useless striving to make ourselves good. This doesn’t mean, though, that God doesn’t have good plans for us or that we can be content with sin and evil. In Romans 6, Paul connects God’s gift of grace in making us right in His eyes to God’s gift of grace in making us good and setting us free from the sin that entraps us. “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer” (verses 1–2)?

Later in the same section, Paul gives us a description of the good life God intends for us:

Oh yes, Christians believe in the good life, but that good life isn’t something we can win through our own efforts. Instead, we trust in God’s goodness, goodness God shares with us as a free gift. In that gift, God changes us, setting us free from
the chains of sin and opening up new possibilities for us. What would have been impossible through human effort is given to us through God’s grace and goodness.

T
HINK
A
BOUT
I
T
/T
ALK
A
BOUT
I
T

1. What’s your reaction to the idea of vegetarian vampires? What does it say about what it means to be good?
   

2. Does the Twilight Saga help you rethink your attitude toward violence?
   

3. What are the key differences between the good life in the Twilight Saga and the good life God promises in Scripture?
   

4. In what ways is your life affected by constant effort and striving?
   

5. How does God set us free from sin?
   

My True Place in This
World

T
HE QUESTIONS ARE OLD ONES
, and they are one key to how the Twilight Saga connects with us as readers. What is the meaning of life? What’s our purpose? What does it mean to be human?

Bella’s story is certainly about purpose, about what her life is for. She struggles with herself throughout the series because of her desire for something more in life. Finally, in becoming a vampire and being united with Edward and his family, she finds transformation, purpose, and meaning.

Most of us, like Bella, struggle with the meaning of our lives and our place in the world. We, too, want something more, something that matters. What can we learn from Bella’s
search for meaning? From her transformation at the end of the series?

At Bella’s first encounter with the Cullens, she is floored by their beauty, which she describes as inhuman. This inhuman beauty is the opposite of Bella’s perception of herself—she is, in her own reckoning at least, absolutely ordinary. Many readers can identify with her sense of dissatisfaction. She is clumsy and graceless. She doesn’t feel like she truly belongs anywhere, either at home or at school.

As her story unfolds, Bella longs more and more deeply to stop being her plain human self and to share in the “inhuman” beauty of the Cullens. Part of her frustration with Edward’s long refusal to change her into a vampire is her horror at growing older. Getting older, for Bella, symbolizes all her ambivalence about and even distaste for her ordinary human life. She sees Edward sparkling in the sun, beautiful, glorious, and frozen in time. He is forever young. Bella can only compare herself to him in negative ways. She doesn’t shine. If Edward doesn’t change her, she will grow old. She will fade and die.

We identify with Bella because we too feel ambivalence, even distaste, about those aspects of our lives that so easily seem meaningless. Plenty of people relate to Bella’s belief that she is
nothing special and doesn’t particularly belong anywhere. Like Bella, we have issues with being merely human.

Yet there is so much to love about ordinary human life. It is clear in Scripture that God has good intentions for human beings. God intends purpose and meaning for us. In Genesis 1:27, we learn that human beings are created in God’s image. This is an enormous claim, a valuable claim, a claim that ought to give us a purpose.

It’s no small thing to reflect God. Over the years, Christians have done a lot of thinking about what it means for humans to be created in God’s image but haven’t been able to agree exactly
what
it is about us that reflects God’s image. Scripture points to a variety of possibilities. Maybe it’s that we, like God, are spiritual beings who can do spiritual things like think, speak, and hope. Maybe it’s that we, like God, are meant to live in relationships. God didn’t create us to be alone but to love each other and to love Him. Maybe it’s that we, like God, have a responsibility for the rest of creation. As God is the creator, perhaps we’re to reflect His image by being caretakers of creation. Maybe being in the image of God reflects some combination of these things.

Whatever else it means, Christians agree that to be created in God’s image means something unshakable about the importance and purpose of human life. We are supposed to reflect the amazing, loving, perfect God who made us. This
means our lives are valuable and meaningful in ways we often don’t consider.

Why then do we, like Bella, still long for purpose and meaning that our ordinary lives don’t seem to deliver? Because something has gone wrong with human life.

We were created in God’s image, which means great things for us, but humans chose sin and death instead. Sin and death changed the whole world, and they changed human life too. While our purpose was to be carriers of God’s image, reflectors of His glory, God’s image in us is now tarnished. That image was broken by sin.

Of course, we long for something more. We are no longer what God intended us to be.

In Romans 8:22–23, Paul beautifully expresses this sense of longing:

We’re not alone in wanting more. Something isn’t right, and all of creation is waiting, groaning, and longing. And, Paul says, we human beings are included.