“Remember who the enemy is ... ”
The Hunger Games reminds us that Christians have enemies too.
The box office caught fire last week as the second instalment of The Hunger Games was released in cinemas and fans of the series rushed to see their favourites on screen. In Catching Fire, President Snow is angered by the uprising and hope that has been caused by Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence). Both her and Peeta Mallark (Josh Hutcherson) are pulled back into the arena for the 75th year of the games, or the 3rd Quarter Quell. They again must battle for survival against other contestants and the dangers of the arena.
Catching Fire builds on the foundation of the original premise of the books, that the real enemy of the people is the Capitol. In the movie, Katniss and Peeta’s mentor Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) only has one real piece of advice for Katniss before she goes into the arena:
“remember who the enemy is...”
This one small line is only uttered twice in the movie. One small line that ends up saving Katniss Everdeen’s life, and one small line that struck me as something we might all do well to remember some times.
Christians face a battle
When Katniss enters the arena for the games, she loses all perspective on life. All she can think about is surviving. In our lives, sometimes we make ourselves so busy, or we get so wrapped up in what we are doing that we too lose perspective. We can’t remember the big picture and we don’t remember who our real enemy is. Is it almost like we have stepped into our own arena.
Now, what are the perimeters in the arena of our lives? We have to remember what the reality is; we have to look beyond what we can see with our eyes. The Bible tells us what our reality is – that Jesus has won the victory over sin and over death (1 Corinthians 15:3-5), the reality is that He is the ultimate King of the universe and that He is the one that will rule with all dominion and all power (Matthew 28:18).
Who are our enemies?
Our arena is not one with poison gas, vicious monkeys, huge tidal waves and deadly traps. We are not fighting against these things or the Capitol or President Snow but we are fighting against sin, this world and the devil (Ephesians 6:12). But the tricky thing is, these things are often hard to see, or disguise themselves as good thing. And so, we start to desire them, rather than want to fight against them. We start to think that maybe God doesn’t know best or doesn’t have our best interests at heart. But we need to cling onto the words of Haymitch, we need to hold fast to the truth of the Bible and “remember who the enemy is...”. Remember that we need to fight against sin, the world, and the devil. But take heart, because Jesus has won that victory over them and we are on His side!
So next time you feel like you’re fighting a battle in your arena of life – Take a second or two to regain perspective. Remember Jesus who has won the victory and “remember who the enemy is...”.
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