a dark reality

having just watched The Dark Knight i am frought with thoughts about my spiritual realities.
first, though, i would like to welcome myself back to my blog after a departure of several months. its been awahile so im plunging right back into the writing game thanks to the encouragement of my good friend Pas Ken of discoverlifechurch.tv.
i have found myself intrigued by heath ledger's joker in a way that no other villian has intrigued me. the movie continually stressed the point that the joker was not a normal "bad guy" as his madness had no concrete explanation. even he (the joker) had but dead end alibis for his victims as to why he was doing what he was doing. his tag line "why so serious?" served only to bely the sheer maniacal force of his will to do whatever he wished without having a purpose.
this morning in the shower i had a thought experiment (just as albert einstein was prone to have - more of this in another blog entry) and i wondered if the joker's character is a glimpse into the mind of the devil. it is my job after all to question everything we think we know and read it through the glasses of skepticism.
have we as modern day christians attempted to ingrain reason into the devil's inconsiderate pandering into our lives? in the dark knight christian bale's bruce wayne struggles with confronting the truth that the joker is not a purposed man but a freak driven by some force unknown. i wonder if its time for us to do the same.
the opening scene sees the joker eliminate even his own henchmen whilst in the process of robbing a bank but leaving one man alive with fake grenade in his mouth who believes he is about to die also. this is the introduction we have to the mind of the joker. he makes a pencil "dissappear" and burns a mountain of money. did he carve those scars into his face or did his father? we'll never know. we watch as he leaves the power of life and death in the hands of a barge of prisoners and a boat of blue collar families. bruce wayne's batman is almost lured into the joker's black hole as he smashes him into the walls and windows of an interrogation room trying to knock reason or information out of the joker. the joker only laughs louder and louder as the blows fall harder. this, ladies and gentleman, is a mad man.
who is the devil then? is he some man who tempts and lures each one of us in the purity of reason and logic? i propose he is not.
he is after all an "... adversary... prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for ANYONE he can devour. " (1 peter 5:8 HCSB)
like the joker he'll toy with anyone's mind. anyone at all. look at the all the ceo's and wall street bigshots that are biting the dirt right now. then look at the druggie or prostitute you walk past today. there is no reason or ryhme to what he does. no one is special to him. like the joker in a very twisted way he is just having fun..."why so serious?". he'll put a smile on your face. this is a scary proposition. am i proposing satan is ludicriously insane? a mad man? a villian without a heart? yes.
issac newton discovered that for every action there is an opposed and equal reaction. satan is a fallen angel who once was heaven's worship leader. when he tried to oppose God, God threw him into hell and all the angels who cared to side with him. let's apply newton's law here. by opposing God he was thrown to hell- God (who by very nature is love) was opposed. the reaction? the making of the antagonist in the story of salvation. what is the opposite of God? the devil. the opposite of Love? chaos.
at the rising of gotham city's protagonist- the Batman- we see the joker arrive: ready to oppose him. why? for no other reason than to introduce chaos and to oppose the batman.
the devil, satan, is not in the same mind frame as our Glorious and Wonderful Creator. he is the opposing antagonist to our protagonist: Jesus. he is chaos and hate where God is Love and Purpose.
for too long, i believe, we have tried to make head and tail (and im not about to introduce two face here!) out of the devil and explain him. to try to make him a reasonable enemy and an annoying pest.
the truth is- satan doesnt care about you at all. he is trapped in his own world that he is king of and burning it to the ground- free of purpose and intent. he'll take anyone with him alive or dead and (as we see in C.S. Lewis' the Screwtape Letters) even run down his own accomplices.
the Bible says that we can overcome him by by the word of our testimony. why is this such an effective antidote to his poison? it reminds him of all the times he's failed at turning our life upside down.
there is a scene where batman and joker are in a struggle stories above a river in gotham city as joker eagerly awaits for one of two barges to explode. he -the joker- has left remotes on each barge to detonate the other barge and left it to the people on board to destroy the other barge to live. when the deadline to do so ends, we watch as complete disblief washes over his face when there is no explosion. the "little experiment" he was conducting ends with no one destroying either boat because he could not account for the compassion and conscience of the people on the boats.
i believe this is the reaction of the devil when we're saved. he knows and understands evil and deception; but when all of his experiments fail - he cannot understand it- because he cannot understand all that is his opposite.
to know our enemy we must understand that he is toying with us for his own enjoyment and satisfaction. when we confront his chaos with the truth of who we are in Jesus, we leave him in a confused daze.
sun tzu says this in his ubiquitous book "the art of war": "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
in the dark knight batman almost loses his battle with the joker because he initially failed to understand his enemy. lets not make the same mistake.