As we psych ourselves up for the release of the new Indiana Jones movie this weekend, read this discussion of the character and of why the first movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” was so good. Note the good lines about how the evil archeologist dared to looked into the abyss of the Ark of the Covenant and “the abyss looked back,” the folly of looking into the face of God, how Indy somehow knew that sometimes one must look away.
This reminds me of the great theological message of that fun popcorn fantasy, which, for all of its lightness and entertainment value, conveyed back to our jaded and secularized imagination in an unforgettably tangible way that God is holy, as poor Uzzah learned when he so much as touched the Ark while only trying to help. We have so abstracted and sentimentalized and domesticated God that we sometimes forget why we need a Mediator to come into His presence.
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