Apocalypto

Several weeks ago, I did something that I normally avoid. I sat and watched about 20 minutes of a very gory, violent movie. I have never particularly enjoyed violent movies of any kind. But the older I have gotten, the more averse I have become to them. So when I walked through the living room and realized that my husband was watching the Mel Gibson movie, Apocalypto, I have no explanation for why I sat down to watch with him.

Warning: this post is about to get somewhat graphic. If you dislike violent descriptions, you should skip this post.

As far as violent movies go, this one ranks pretty high. The scenes that I watched mostly involved human sacrifice. Men were slit open, had their hearts (still beating) cut out of their chests, decapitated, and then had their lifeless heads and bodies thrown down the temple steps. There were people at the bottom of the step dancing and waving big baskets around to catch the corpses and heads. Thick blood slicked over the steps. A sizable pile of dead bodies was heaped up near the bottom of the temple. All of the onlookers were cheering and dancing while the slaughter took place.

As the doomed captives were led to the sacrificial altar, wide-eyed and terrified, the priests, royal family and young princes looked on mercilessly. A fat young prince (I assume he was a prince) even smirked at the helpless victims.

The whole thing was beyond disgusting. I hated it.

But it did bring something into sharp focus for me.

There are parts of the Old Testament that are kind of hard to swallow. In particular, when the Israelites are in the process of conquering Canaan and the surrounding territories, they were often commanded by God to utterly destroy the native populations. This destruction even included women and children. In at least one case, even the animals were to be wiped out.

1Samuel 15:3

"Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

Even though I have some understanding of why this slaughter was necessary, I still have a hard time accepting it. I mean, we New Testament believers understand God as LOVE. We don't really like to think of our loving God commanding that people be killed, babies especially. But it is in the Bible, and because it is, we have to deal with it.

I think part of the reason we struggle to understand why God commanded the Israelites to destroy the Amelkites, and other populations, is because we tend to think of those peoples as if they were just like us. And to be sure, in many basic ways they were. But by contrast, we live in a culture that has been affected by two thousand plus years of Christian morality. Obviously, you can't include every culture in the world in that generalization, but I am thinking of America and most of Europe specifically.

Back in the days of Apocalypto, and Amelek, no such Christian influence existed. Human sacrifice, and even child sacrifice, was common practice. It was so widespread that God specifically command the Israelites NOT to practice human and child sacrifice. (Deut 12:29-31)

And even with those prohibitions, the Israelites still on occassion did sacrifice their children to pagan gods.

2Ki 17:17

"And they caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and soothsaying, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger."

The thought of human sacrifice is utterly repulsive to me. But realizing that it was common practice, and actually visualizing what it may have looked like, by watching Apocalypto, has helped me to understand just how evil the native populations of Canaan probably were. They were not gentle farmers going about their business when the Israelites swooped in for the attack. They were some bad dudes. And dudettes. And they indulged in some terribly evil and revolting practices.

I still don't quite know how to reconcile the destruction of the babies and animals with God's lovingkindness. Well, that is not entirely true. I think that God's holiness has something to do with it. But that topic deserves a post all its own. In the meantime, I accept that God is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love. Even when He commanded the Israelites to kill those babies. I may not be able to explain it in a way that you (or I) find completely satisfying. But it is true nonetheless.

Job 40:2

"Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it."