"Like a flint"

After a month off, I’m back.  While I am happy to share this content with you today, understand that there is a certain challenge to jumping back into this.  You see, I have so much I want to cover, so I have to reel it in or I might inadvertently write three blogs when it’s supposed to be just one.  One thing I did want to mention, with a heavy heart, is the death of Val Kilmer, who passed back on April 1.  He was 65.  Again, I could write a whole blog just on Val’s legacy today; I could go on and on describing how, in my view, his performance as Batman/Bruce Wayne in 1995’s “Batman Forever” was vastly underrated.  The movie itself may be over-the-top and implausible at times, but Val himself carried the film capably.  He was wise to get off the Bat-franchise ride after just the one film, because the next installment – 1997’s “Batman and Robin” – was a train wreck.

One of the lesser-known roles that Val Kilmer was involved in was a 2011 Spider-Man video game called “Spider-Man: Edge of Time”.  Here Val played a villain named Walker Sloan, a character who managed to create a gateway in the year 2099 to go into the past, and use his knowledge of the future to change it for his selfish, greedy purposes.  The Spider-Man of 2099, Miguel O’Hara (voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes, the actor who voiced Spider-Man in the 90’s cartoon show) works with Peter Parker/Spider-Man (voiced by Josh Keaton) to undo the damage Sloan did to the timeline.

What is intriguing about the plot of this game is that Peter/Spider-Man is fated to die, thanks to Sloan’s actions, at the hands of a powerful enemy named Anti-Venom.  O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 warns Peter Parker of this; ever the hero, Peter’s first thought is protecting the lives of the people, were he to run away.  The witty banter between Parker and O’Hara is the highlight of this game.  Like this zinger from Peter after O’Hara urges him to leave the building: “So a crazed killer can wander around the building without me to stop him?  No way…I’m going to do what I think is right.  And that means going after bad guys.  You want a Spider-Man who’ll do whatever you want?  Go play a video game.”  

For a portion of the game, the major thread of the story is Peter’s imminent death.  I actually want to leave that storyline dangling for now – as we contemplate once again the vitally important week we are in – perhaps this will create tension.  Let me pick it up again next time.  As I was putting all of this together, as I contemplated Peter Parker’s example in the face impending death, a passage in Isaiah 50 came to my mind.  Isaiah 50:6-7 reads, “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.  Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced.  Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know I won’t be put to shame.”  This is a prediction fulfilled by Jesus Christ.

One helpful resource (which you can find right here) puts it this way, “Set your face like flint is the figure of speech the prophet uses to describe the Messiah’s unwavering determination to persevere in the excruciating task set before Him.  Christ would endure humiliation on His journey to the cross to die for our sins.  Nearly 800 years before it happened, Isaiah foretold the suffering of the Lord’s servant…Luke echoes this resolute image of Christ set on saving His people: “When the days grew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51; ESV).  In Jerusalem Jesus would face arrest, torture, and agonizing death.”

To be continued!

Kevin