Atonement for Our Guilt
While Homer portrays the sacking of Troy as an act of heroism, in a controversial departure, Nolan portrays it as an act of dishonorable deception.[1] As the author of the deception, Nolan’s Odysseus is haunted by the consequences of his actions for Troy, his soldiers, and civilization as a whole. His guilt is so profound that it even stifles his desire to return home.
And yet, as he wanders, he finds there is no place to atone for his guilt. The capricious gods meter out justice to whomever they feel most offended by at the moment – whether for eating a cow or harming a cyclops. Sacrifices might be made, but they are only to enact magic or appease the dishonored dead, and they are incapable of cleansing the conscience. But even after he drives the suitors from his home and sails West with his beloved, Odysseus longs for his sins to be washed away, saying, “Dawn will break over the darkened world. And our mistakes will once again be forgotten.”
Perhaps Nolan includes this in the film because we are far more like his Odysseus than we may realize. Memories of wrongdoing haunt the modern person. In the age of the internet, everything, even our most glaring sins, can be remembered forever. All our sins, kept on record in a data center somewhere, are easily accessible at any time. This nagging sense of guilt carries forward into our embodied reality, where social anxiety and shame dominate our existence. We are all Lady Macbeth, trying to wash our hands, but unable to get the spots out.
We want nothing more than for dawn to break over this dark world, and our mistakes to be forgotten.
A Norm to Follow
The term “Zeus’s law” permeates the film. This law, known as xenia, is a mandate of hospitality. In one instance, Nolan explains xenia using language similar to the Golden Rule when Telemachus describes it as “treat others as you want to be treated.” The trouble is that this is not what xenia instructed.
Xenia guards an inherently reciprocal relationship between guest and host. As the horrific actions of many characters in the film demonstrate, it does not apply to relationships outside that dynamic.[2] Jesus’ words, however, are not limited in scope. They are a command of universal benevolence, even and especially when no reciprocity is at hand.[3]
With such a clear distinction between the two, why did Nolan feel the need to baptize xenia? In an interview, Lupita Nyong’o gives us a hint when she describes xenia as a “wonderful, age-old value system we need so badly to be reminded of” (0:38). Her description reveals our cultural longing for “an age-old value system” to live by. What J.H. Bavinck calls “a norm.”[5] And yet, as we look to the ancients for that norm – Homer, the Stoics, Machiavelli, etc. – we find them far crueler than we anticipated.
At this point, we are left with a choice: do we embrace the ancients in their cruelty, or do we baptize their principles to establish their relevance and quiet our aching consciences?
We know we have made our decision when we put the words of Jesus in the mouths of Homer’s protagonists.
Divine Intervention
The pantheon of Greek gods is frequently on the lips of characters in The Odyssey, but they are never seen. They are prayed to, and actions are attributed to them, but they are never present. Even Athena is not actually present, but a figment haunting Odysseus’s guilty mind.
Most of the characters, even Odysseus, long for divine intervention. But they’re continually let down and have to take matters into their own hands. This is why Odysseus tells his son, “Don’t look for gods in men, you’ll only be disappointed.” The gods were not good, and they could not be trusted. If anything, they must be defied.
Odysseus is not alone in his sentiment. In particular, Gen Z’s primary resistance to the gospel is not to the existence of God but to the goodness of God.[6] I have even talked with young adults who say they would not worship the God of the Bible, even if they could be convinced he was real, because they did not believe he was good. And yet, in times of suffering, they find themselves longing for intervention from a God they say they do not believe in.
As Nolan’s Odysseus shows us, even those who defy the divine cannot help but long for divine intervention.
The True Odysseus
In the gospel, we are introduced to the hero that Odysseus faintly resembles, a hero whose deeds are so glorious, so numerous, that neither Homer nor Nolan, nor all the books in the world can contain them. By faith in him, we can find the norm we long to follow, atonement for the guilt we cannot shake, and the divine intervention we so desperately need.
Odysseus was haunted by his guilt – unable to forget or atone for his deceit. Jesus “committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth,” and yet, he atoned for the deceits of all who would believe in him by His death on the cross.
Odysseus ventured into Hades, but had to flee for fear of the dead consuming him. Jesus ventured into the grave by death itself, but He did not flee out of the grave. He rose as the victorious conqueror of death, and now, freely gives life to all who believe in him.
Odysseus both defied divine intervention and longed for it. He intentionally acted against the prophesied will of the gods, and he also manifested guilty visions of Athena after destroying her temple. Jesus, however, is the God-Man, the true Divine One. He is the divine intervention all people long for. But when he intervenes, we find the Divine One is not capricious or flighty. He is supremely, beautifully good, and entirely trustworthy. And he is the one who “through many dangers, toils, and snares” leads us home with him forever.
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