Buh-baaaah-b-bb-buh buuuh baaaah!!

That's the closest I can come to mimicking the theme to Star Wars. I am revved up, of course, because I am a nerd and the next Star Wars movie will soon be in theatres.

I still remember the way I felt when the first Star Wars came out. I desperately wanted to go. All my friends had seen this movie. I could not convince my father to take me. I had the book, I had the comic, so I knew the story well enough that I was not left out of conversations at school. But I had never felt the rumble of that Star Destroyer crossing the screen and taking forever to do it. I knew I had not really experienced Star Wars. Finally my Dad took me to see it at the old Somerset theatre, and while we waiting in line, some lady in the building across from the theatre barfed off the 10th floor. Then she lit up a cigarette and smoked some more. Funny the things you remember.

I remember how I felt when the second Star Wars film came out. I went to see it in Bismarck, North Dakota, if I remember right, as we had been traveling west to see my grandmother. I remember thinking how different it was from the first film. I also remember not being terribly surprised by the "I am your father" thing either for some reason.

I was, however, completely surprised by Return of the Jedi. I thought for sure that Star Wars would end with the triumphant defeat of Darth Vader, whose ignominous fate would be well deserved. I did not expect to discover that Luke would actually find a way to save his father.

Which leads me to Easter, which I am also revved up for. I'm conscious actually of two religious holidays that are on their way, as they always fall within days of each other, Easter and Passover. For despite the very different reasons for the two holidays, both have a very similar theme at their core - a people delivered, by divine grace, from slavery. And slavery comes in many forms. It can be external oppressors, akin to pharoah and the Egyptians. Or the slavery can be a wrongheaded devotion to screwing up one's own life.

What becomes clear with these latest iterations of Star Wars is that the latter, a banal problem we all face, is the entire reason for the existence of Darth Vader. Yes, he may personify evil, but evil for its own sake is not how he ended up there. It is the inability of Anakin Skywalker to accept the place set before him that results in his date with the ventilator. He is a slave to this inability. And yet even someone so far down the wrong road is saveable - Vader is saved by his own son, because of one thing - love.

Love is what saved the Israelites. Although the story tells of plagues visited on the Egyptians, really, all of these were quite gentle warnings. Frogs and locusts were severe enough to frighten a superstitious people, but could not unharden pharoah's hardened heart. That the plagues culminate in the death of Egypt's firstborn is his failure, not God's. God took pity on the weaker party, the slaves, remembering a favoured status he had once bestowed on a distant ancestor, Abraham. As I've heard the joke goes, "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat!" But the survival is due to God. Even today, Jews survive despite the concerted efforts of so many over the years to wipe them out. How can we not see the hand of God in this? He keeps his promises forever. There will always be descendants to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And love is what saves Christians. We are a communion who consider ourselves in need of saving from our own iniquity. We have been shown a "still better way" as St. Paul puts it. An act of love is at the heart of our soteriology, the passion and ressurection. And continuing acts of love in our lives - this is The Way, as our religion was called before it had a name.

I look forward to the night of the Easter vigil, when the candles light up the dark in the sanctuary. I look forward to the full moon in the sky, heralding the time when the lightness of day begins to outshine the dark.

And of course I look forward to Revenge of the Sith, coming May 19 to a theatre near you. ;-)