The Arrival of Christ: What Kind of Gift Is This?

(CNS photo courtesy Conception Abbey)

I wrote this during the second week in Advent and sent it to a few Catholic publications, hoping to get it on one of their blogs. Now Christmas is almost over– Epiphany is today if you go by the “old” liturgical calendar (it will always be January 6 for me!) And this piece seems relevant to Epiphany, the celebration of the Incarnation recognized by the three kings. I continue to think about the film Arrival, and particularly about the way language shapes us and the importance of understanding how meaning resides in language. What closer analogy than kings recognizing a new way through contact with a baby.

Each Advent season, as we await the Birth of Christ, we contemplate the nature of the Revelation. Especially this year traveling through Matthew’s gospel, we spend some time with John the Baptist and all those waiting and wondering what form the promised Christ will take.

In some ways, for the waiting Jews, it must have been like the aliens who come to earth in the film Arrival. First, they notice a strange star. The star portends the coming of the Christ—and kings and shepherds go to find out what kind of king this is, who it is the angels are singing about. They find a baby, and rather than risk a threat to his power, even in the form of a baby, King Herod calls for the slaughter of Jewish children under the age of two.

Viewers of the film will recognize the impulse. Although the aliens make no movement to destroy anything, their very presence is a threat to world leaders. And despite the aliens’ attempt to communicate with people around the world, there is distrust of them and their motives. Eventually, some of the most powerful nations on earth (Russia, China) want to blow the aliens out of the sky.

What is at the center of the argument for and against the aliens is the interpretation of a single sentence: “We have come to give you a gift.” A gift is good, but what if the word isn’t “gift” but rather should be translated as “advantage,” or “weapon.” What if the aliens have come to “deliver” a “weapon”? It’s all a matter of interpretation.

Finally the linguist at the center of the film, Louise Banks (Amy Adams), understands, because of her increasingly deep understanding of the alien language, that they have come indeed to give a gift, and the gift is their language.

Their gift is the Word. According to the main premise of the film, language shapes our understanding and view of the world, fundamentally shapes our brains. The difference in language is the difference between “gift,” “advantage,” and “weapon.” The power of the language the aliens give is that, once mastered, it shapes the brain in a way that transcends time. Also, and more importantly, it shapes the brains of all who truly learn the language toward world peace.

A language that, understood and utilized, results in world peace. To me that sounds like Christ. Our pursuit, with Christians of all times, to understand and shape our brains and hearts according to the Word, to become more like Christ, will result in the coming of God’s kingdom on earth. A kingdom where the lion will lie down with the lamb. The peaceable kingdom.