Scott Yang's Playground

I watched Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow on DVD last night. Interesting idea, boring and predictable plot, really dodgy science, so-so acting – not that I care because of its great post-production special effect. The story is about the “whole world” (which is really just the United States according to the film) freezes over as the global warming disrupts the heat cycle, which puts the earth into its new ice-age. On the centre stage we also have Jack the scientist making his way to the frozen New York to rescue his son Sam. At the end of the film, father and son were united, boy and girl were in love, stubborn vice-president apologised, the storm was cleared, but “everything” was still covered in white. Confused and unresolved.

As a Christian, what did I learn from this film?

Jack made his way to save his son Sam because of a promise he made to him, and because of his own faithfulness – it is something that is modelled after God’s own faithfulness to save his people. As a bright teenager, Sam not only knows his father (who is a knowledgeable scientist and an antarctic explorer) but he also trusted him. When Jack instructed him to stay in-door to keep warm and to wait for the rescue, he listened. He waited, instead of trying to find his own way to escape like all the others who initially stuck in the library and perished in the snow. His trust has certainly been tempted and challenged, but Sam sticked to what he has believed…

As someone who has been saved by Christ, and has been promised with eternal life, are we sometimes tempted to seek our own way out? Our patience seems to be so thin sometimes when we wait for his return, but forget about how willing, how capable and how faithful God is.

Another challenge to us is our view to the natural disaster. Mankind is not sovereign, but God is. He can choose to wipe out the entire humanity with flood, which he had done so previously, so can he do it with the ice-age. One interesting remark in the movie comes from that unrepentant librarian – he is holding onto a copy of the Gutenberg Bible as he saw it as nothing but a great achievement of humanity. But when asked whether he believed in God, he refused to acknowledge any divine. Movable type and printing process is nothing in comparison to what this creator God can do, and you would expect him to come to this realisation under that kind of severe natural disaster! But the heart of a sinful man remains blinded. Nothing can change that, other than the grace of God.

So what if the humanity has survived another ice age? They are there to humble ourselves, so that we will profess our unworthiness, repent, seek God and ask for forgiveness. Survival is not something that should make us proud “hey, humanity survived the last ice age, we are now more capable to survive this one!”