Journey to the Center of the Earth, the 2008 remake of a 1959 movie, is not a movie for the ages. However, it does contain situations that can serve as analogies for our life as Christians, as we give ourselves completely to journey with God and experience His kingdom both here and for eternity. While the characters in this movie journey for a few days, we are on an eternal journey giving ourselves over to our Father.The 2008 movie is about three people, geologist Trevor Anderson, played by Brendan Fraser, his teenaged nephew, and an Icelandic mountain guide, who find themselves at the center of the earth after they first rappel inside a cave, peed down train tracks in mining cars further inside. Soon they find themselves standing in a section that is lined with diamonds. Within a few moments they realize what they are standing on is not secure; it is a thin sheet of rock that cracks and releases them to hurtle deeper and deeper into the cave, seemingly forever falling until they reach a pool of water, and are at the center of the earth.
As with many characters in horror/slasher movies, these three are in varying states of denial as they move from one improbable situation to another. Only when they are in danger of burning to death from the growing heat at the center do they rely on a journal and accompanying book for guidance and safety, both of which they previously believed as fantasies. In other words, once they give up their skepticism about where they are and about the authors of the journal and the book, and embrace their realties, they are soon able to escape. Their escape is also punctuated by sea monsters, human-eating venus flytraps, and a few other preposterous creatures of a vaguely prehistoric milieu.
Not that Christians ever suffer from skepticism, or find their circumstances going from bad to worse. But we do have the opportunity to make Christ the centerpiece in our life, and make everything in our day submitted to him. In the Bible we have a testament far stronger than the journal and work of fiction the characters in Journey had. In the Holy Spirit, we have someone who mediates in each and every circumstance we find ourselves. Most importantly, as Christians we are on a journey to our home with the Father. So we have far more reasons to give our all, to be totally behind the truth of Christ and the direction of the Holy Spirit, than the characters in this movie had to go on their journey across the underground ocean, believing they would be able to make it back up to their home.
