Film Friday This is a sprawling epic from The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola. It’s set in a city called New Rome (a mixture of modern New York and ancient Rome), where an epic tussle of wills is playing out between Cesar Catilina, a brilliant designer with a vision for a Utopian future, and the mayor of the city Franklyn Cicero, who is not very keen on the idea.
Many films are set in the future and most of them imagine it to be a dark and dystopian place, full of shadows and foreboding, but this is a film which dares to imagine the possibility of a better world rather than a broken one.
We have a deeply held longing for a better version of life, a cry within us for another world – whether we call it Xanadu, El Dorado, Shangri-La, Eden – there are many myths and legends about this. We seem to have this notion deep within us that life is not as it should be, it should be better, brighter, more fulfilling, as if we were made for another kind of life. I think this is a sign that we were made for God’s kingdom, and that this world was once very different, a place of wonder, harmony, justice and endless invention.
When Jesus walked in to town at the start of Mark’s gospel he announced that this kingdom was coming, he embodied it, as a new kind of leader full of grace and truth, justice, and kindness. And one day Jesus will reign forever, and we will indeed be living the kind of life we can only dream of now. Jesus will be king, Daniel 7 v 13 & 14 tells us, his Megalopolis will be the whole world, and his rule of peace and justice will last for all time.
A prayer – Lord thank you for the promise we have in your eternal future reign one day – may that hope help us today, and may it inspire us with how we treat others. Amen
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