Bunnies, Heroes, a Savior, and Living Well

The Easter Bunny is back.  However, during this un-American period, when J6 political prisoners are locked up for their beliefs and President Trump is persecuted for threatening the Deep State’s permanent power, another bunny story leaps to mind: Richard Adams’s adventure novel, Watership Down, about a warren of anthropomorphized rabbits fighting for their survival.  Among the many trials along their journey, the rabbits must escape an idyllic warren that belies its true purpose as a meat farm where our furry friends are kept tranquilly happy before being skinned and eaten.

The parallel to Marxism’s alluring but deadly Utopia is unmistakable.  In order to secure future peace and prosperity, they must also defend themselves from a vicious tyrant ruling a powerful but despotic bunny police state.  Fighting those who insist on their subjugation, the rabbits of Watership Down put their lives on the line time and again for the chance to be free.  With warrantless surveillance, State-sanctioned censorship, and endless media propaganda all strangling America today, this beloved tale is an allegory worth re-reading.

Adams’s novel is also filled with heroes.  There are prophets, warriors, thinkers, and true leaders.  There are moments when great personal sacrifices from the unlikeliest of heroes end up saving the whole group.  Every rabbit has a purpose, a destiny that aids in the warren’s survival.

That’s an important message that is often lost in today’s postmodern world.  It is tempting to become so discouraged with current events that life feels meaningless.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  You are not a “clump of cells.”  You are not an “accident.”  You have been brought into this world for an important reason.  Whether you realize it yet or not, you have a personal calling.

Some people are teachers or healers or builders.  Some are parents and grandparents.  Some are meant to fight, some are meant to counsel restraint, some are meant to lead, and some are meant to spread wisdom.  When you seek out your purpose and pursue it to the best of your abilities, you become a hero to those who learn and prosper from your presence.  Heroes give others hope and create new heroes in the process.

For Christians, Easter is a time for hope.  It is a time for reflection about the meaning of sacrifice, forgiveness, and redemption.  It is an opportunity to concentrate on the eternal blessing of being saved.  It is a chance to put the chaos of this life into proper perspective.

What does it mean to be saved?  Imagine the earth collapsing all around, an immense hole opening up beneath your feet, and the startling recognition that you have begun to fall.  Your arms and legs flail, your mind races, and you grab at every tree root or jagged rock within reach.  You find something to grip, clutch desperately, but it will not hold.  You can feel yourself slipping and realize that you will soon fall away.  Then, out of nowhere, a hand reaches down, grabs you, squeezes you with strength you no longer possess, and lifts you to safety.  That’s what it feels like to be saved.

For some, it comes when all seems lost and that last fingerhold is about to give way.  For others, it happens in the most unexpected time or place.  In every case, though, there is a moment — sometimes inexplicably long in the shortest space — when you realize that you are not alone, that Christ is with you, and that all will be okay.  And being pulled up to solid ground for perhaps the first time in your life, you are left with the unmistakable revelation that nothing going forward will ever be the same.

When that hand reaches for you and you take it, nothing else matters.  It is Christ’s embrace alone that grips the mind from that instant.  You don’t take a breather, thank the hero, and walk away.  You find yourself entranced deep in your soul with an overwhelming sense of having been redeemed.  Whatever path you had been treading fades away, and out of nowhere, a new path appears.  Heroic sacrifice delivers hope and brings new heroes to life.

Does this seem too miraculous to be true?  In an age when science is worshiped like “settled” dogma and religious teachings are rewritten to meet “woke” demands, God’s miracles are often ignored.  Craige McMillan recently wrote an essay, entitled “Are You Reticent about the Supernatural?,” in which he tells the story of four children with life-threatening injuries who were inexplicably healed at a hospital one evening.  The local newspaper never ran a story about the event.  People who heard the story, but did not witness it firsthand, chose to forget it.  Yet it happened.  It was a miracle.  And as with so many other miracles that happen all around us, people looked quickly and then turned the other way.

Will you turn the other way?  Or would you be willing to open your eyes and see what God is doing?  Will you believe — in miracles, in heroes, and in redemption?  Because if you can find the courage to recognize that there are great forces guiding us today, then you will also come to the realization that, though the ground may be falling all around us, there is a steady hand within reach.

There’s a wonderful scene in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln when Daniel Day-Lewis pushes back against his advisers’ pessimism about ever passing the Thirteenth Amendment by exclaiming: “We’re whalers! … We’ve been chasing this whale for a long time.  And we finally placed a harpoon in the monster’s back. … We finish the deed now. … Or with one flop of his tail, he’ll smash the boat and send us all to eternity.”

Every time current events threaten to spoil my mood, those lines echo in my head.  We’re whalers!  What we are doing in this life is not easy.  Defending American liberty from those who would oppress us is hard work.  Resisting State censorship and groupthink comes with dire costs.  Opposing immoral government policies when the whole news media apparatus embraces Deep State goals is not for the faint of heart.  But that is always the way things are when men choose to leave the safety of home, embark upon dangerous adventure, survive on tiny boats, float adrift in vast seas, and slay an enormous beast.

However bad today might look, tomorrow could be tremendous.  All it takes is a little bit of faith and determination to find out.

No matter how great the waters around us or how choppy the waves, not one among us will drown if we refuse to lose our way.  Part of staying on the right path includes recognizing the difference between living the good life and living a good life.  Those who meekly follow woke scripture and the politically correct doctrines of the State may certainly be rewarded with money and titles, but those who embrace truth, defend life, and act with conviction will always be wealthy.  No matter how ruthless tyrants can be, they still pale in comparison to the strength and blessings of an Almighty God.

So I ask again: do you believe in miracles?  Do you believe that God reaches down to catch us when we fall?  Do you believe He makes heroes out of those least likely to be so?  Do you believe living well is more important than being well rewarded?

If so, then no trial in this world is too daunting.  No adversity can best perseverance.  No tyranny can conquer those who insist on freedom.  No villain can steal the hero’s faith.  Believe, and you will find an outstretched hand when you least expect it.  Save others, and you, too, will one day be saved.