At the movies: Godzilla X Kong

In "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire", the clash between Godzilla, King Kong, and other monsters depicts the constant struggle between good and evil forces. In the Bible, we see the conflicts between God and Satan and the righteous and the wicked. Discover how the Bible makes sense of these dynamics and God's solution to evil.

INTRO

We’re in the second week of our “At the Movies” series and this is one of the funest series we do at RiverLife.

I get to watch movies and find biblical themes in them.

Movies are simply stories, and I can appreciate any good story that contains meaningful values and morals in them.

I especially appreciate when stories embed deep and meaningful thoughts and perspectives regarding life’s biggest questions.

It makes you stop, think, and wonder.

In the next few weeks, I hope that these movies can help us turn to Jesus more and more as we reflect on what the world has to say and compare it with what Jesus says.

Last week, we explored Dune 2 and this morning, we are going to look at Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

This movie currently ranks as #5 in this year’s worldwide box office hits.

It is also the most recent installment of the Monsterverse franchise, which began with 2014’s Godzilla and currently consists of 5 movies and 2 TV shows with another expected to release in 2027.

Let’s watch the trailer to get an idea of what it’s about.

[PLAY TRAILER]

History of monster movies

In prepping for this sermon, I found myself curious about what inspired the original creators of Godzilla and King Kong.

I discovered that King Kong was created by Merian C. Cooper and the first King Kong movie debuted 1933. Cooper found inspiration from the expeditions he went on where he would film people and animals in the different places.

He would then take the footage and create a film out of it through editing and adding a plot.

King Kong specifically came from his interest with primates and Komodo dragons and it has gone on to inspire many other monster movies like Godzilla.

The origins of Godzilla are a bit more unique.

Originating from Japan, the early Godzilla movies fall under a genre called kaiju films.

Kaiju is Japanese for strange or mysterious monster and they draw heavy inspiration from two aspects of Japanese culture. Shintoism, a Japanese religion, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

From Shintoism, these powerful monsters resemble the belief that there are good and bad spirits.

Followers of Shintoism pay their respects to the good spirits and avoiding the bad spirits to prevent misfortune. These spirits are seen as impersonal forces that must be revered or else they can bring misfortune to a person.

Godzilla also draws inspiration from the historical trauma caused by the bombings during World War II.

Godzilla along with several other kaiju monsters symbolize the catastrophic and unstoppable forces that threaten life.

These monsters are also forces that cannot be controlled by humanity so they must simply submit to the terror that the monster causes.

And in watching Godzilla x Kong and researching the origins of these monster movies, it helped highlight major similarities and difference about God.

Let’s start with some similarities.

Godzilla, King Kong, and God are respectively big both literally and figuratively.

They are powerful.

And they rule and reign over their respective realms.

But the major difference is that God is personal while Godzilla and King Kong are impersonal.

godzilla and king kong are impersonal, but god is personal

In order to understand the point that I’m trying to make, let me give you a brief summary of the movie.

Godzilla and King Kong rule their respective realms, but they eventually encounter Skar King, the main villain. Skar King is powerful and seeks to take over both realms that King Kong and Godzilla rule occupy.

Individually, King Kong and Godzilla can’t beat Skar Kong alone, but as a team, they can.

The only issue is they have a bitter rivalry that gets in their way.

Humans are also involved, but there is very little they can do to influence Godzilla and King Kong to cooperate to fight Skar King.

As much as they try to get Godzilla and King Kong to cooperate, the two monsters are impersonal, and they are more interested in preserving their own realms.

Similarly, the concept of an impersonal god is description that people will attribute to the God we believe.

Some believe God created the world and humanity and left it all alone while others believe that an all good, all powerful, and all loving God can’t exist if there’s evil in the world.

Either God is evil, or God doesn’t exist so it paints God to be like Godzilla and King Kong.

God is a monster or God is fictional.

But if we read throughout the scripture, it describes God as a personal being who cares, loves, provides, and interacts with us.

Earlier, we heard Psalm 63 and this is a Psalm describing David’s personal relationship with God.

Let me re-read and then explain it for us.

This is what it says,

1 You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.

2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.

3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.

5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.

7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.

8 I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.

9 Those who want to kill me will be destroyed;

they will go down to the depths of the earth.

10 They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals.

11 But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God will glory in him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

This Psalm is written by David during a time where he was fleeing from Saul.

Saul made David a leader over his armies, but soon became jealous because of David’s success and reputation so he was determined to kill David.

David flees to escape Saul and we find David in the desert struggling to find water, the element needed to survive.

But even in David’s struggle, a situation where some might doubt God’s goodness and love for us, David expresses his continual trust in God.

Even in the most catastrophic moment of his life, David expresses the certainty that God will surely take care of the situation.

David confidently places his hope in God.

There isn’t any uncertainty or doubt in God, but David is sure that God will intervene by recalling past experiences when David experience God’s presence.

David recalls seeing God’s presence in the sanctuary and in the late evenings when he had difficulty going to sleep.

And because he has personally experienced God’s protection in the past, this helps him remain confident that God will continue to protect him.

He describes confidence in God’s protection like this,

7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.

8 I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.

9 Those who want to kill me will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth.

David trust that he will “sing in the shadow of [God’s] wing”, a reference to how birds protect their chicks by hiding them under their wing.

David also expects that God’s right hand, his strength will support him and help him defeat any adversaries.

The contrast that we see here reminds us that God is personal and interested in our wellbeing whereas Godzilla and King Kong are impersonal.

It’s a great juxtaposition reminding us that God knows our needs and tends to them.

Jesus cares for us

It becomes even more evident to us that God is personal and cares for us when we read the New Testament.

We get Jesus who also cares and loves us and we’re reminded in passages like Hebrews 4:15-16 which says this,

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 

16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

We’re reminded that Jesus made himself like us by become human so that he could empathize all our pain needs so that we could turn to him in need.

Godzilla and King Kong don’t empathize. Spoiler alert, they save the world, but it comes at the cost of others.

The save the world, but cause tons of collateral.

Buildings are decimated, cars are crushed, and cities are left in shambles, but that isn’t the God we believe.

God promises that he will defeat all our enemies and bring restoration to our world.

The relationship with God is two sided whereas the relationship that Godzilla and King Kong have with their fellow humans is one sided.

God is a personal God who cares for his needs and our needs, but Godzilla and King Kong only care for their needs.

We have a personal God who knows us and invites us into a fatherly relationship with him and this is one of the beauties of who we believe in, but it doesn’t stop there.

APPLICATION

Because we have a personal God who loves us and cares for us, and we’re created in his image to be just like him, we’re encouraged to live like him.

Not only does Jesus to save us, but we encouraged to go love and care for others.

In Philippians 2, Paul encourages the believers to do this,

1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 

2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. 

Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus

Paul encourages to be like Christ and value others above us.

Of course, we’re limited in what we can do, but we’re encouraged to do this because we share the same Spirit in our life.

The Holy Spirit who is tender and compassionate.

And this Spirit is so personal that he dwells in our us according to 1 Corinthians 3:16.

So the next time you find yourself caring and loving others deeply, know that it comes from the personal relationship we have with God.

The next time you find yourself concerned with the wellbeing of a stranger, it comes from the personal relationship we have with God.

Let’s pray.