If you have not read The Fellowship of the Ring and the first 5 chapters of book 1 of The Two Towers, or seen those two movies, then please turn around and do so. There are spoilers for those stories otherwise.
Ok. Hopefully we are down to those who have read these stories and/or seen the movies.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of the greatest fantasy epics of our time both in book and movie form. In the Fellowship of the Ring (the first book/movie of the trilogy) a hobbit/halfling named Frodo goes on a perilous quest to destroy a terrible magic ring alongside 8 companions. They must bring the ring to Mount Doom in the land of Mordor and throw it into the fire. One of the companions is a wise wizard named Gandalf the Grey. While on the quest they encounter a demonic creature called a balrog. Gandalf is the only one that can hold the balrog off. He has an epic battle with it and falls to his death.
While I was a seminary student a couple of my friends who had never read the Lord of the Rings books or seen the movies before decided to watch the movies. I got the privilege of watching it with them. At the time those of us that lived in the women's dorm were reading On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius together (if you have not read this I highly recommend doing so). We watched The Fellowship of the Ring, and then we watched The Two Towers.
Partway through The Two Towers three of the companions were trying to save two others and they ended up in the middle of a forest. While there they encounter someone. A white wizard. There is a white wizard running around the land. His name is Saruman. Saruman is an evil wizard. So, the three companions attempt kill him before he can put an evil spell on them. Their efforts are immediately stopped and all of a sudden they are able to see the white wizard's face, but it is not the face of Saruman, it is the face of Gandalf. No, this is no evil trick by Saruman either. Gandalf had come back to life. One of the companions asks for forgiveness. "I mistook you for Saruman." Gandalf answers, "I am Saruman. Or rather Saruman as he should be." At this moment in the movie for some reason I turned away and looked at one of my friends. There was this look on her face that I just can't fully describe. She saw a beautiful truth in what just happened and had been said in the movie. If she hadn't have had that look on her face, I wouldn't have caught it myself.
I first read these books and saw these movies while in highschool. The movies came out, I wanted to see them, and my friends who had read the books were like, "No, you need to read the books first." So, I did. I loved them.
Back then I only saw the surface truth. Gandalf had died fighting evil in order to save others and then came back to life, just as Jesus died fighting evil in order to save us and came back to life. This is good. The writer of the book, J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, so I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there was at least a little bit of that truth running through him as he wrote his story, but there was something more happening in these scenes.
When Gandalf came back to life he now had the rank that Saruman used to have. The rank that Saruman threw away in order to follow one of the most evil characters in land of Middle Earth (the land that the Lord of the Rings happens in). Gandalf was using his powers to help save the world. Saruman used his powers to help someone evil take over the world. Jesus came down and became a human being. A perfect human being. He never sinned. He made the ultimate sacrifice for everyone else, to save them. He used His divinity to help people both with their physical problems and to forgive their sins and bring them salvation. We having being the crown of God's creation, sin, do evil things and "help" ourselves.
We are Saruman. Jesus is Gandalf. We are man in a fallen state, doing it all wrong. Jesus is perfect, selfless, and loving, Man as he should be.
Why does it matter that Jesus became Man as he should be? Because the only sacrifice that would work to redeem us from our sin, would be a spotless, perfect man. Without Jesus, that doesn't/didn't exist. So, Jesus became Man as He should be.
Let us rejoice that this is the truth! For because of it we can be saved from our sins!
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