Fantastic Four

Yes, it's films again. I know, get a life, etc, etc.
So, I watched 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer again last night. I last saw it at the cinema with my son, when we accidentally walked into the wrong screen and got as far as the BBFC screen for Hostel: Pt 2 before I realised our error. The film itself didn't especially affect me back then, but since then I have been provoked to consider more carefully what I watch and think about its meaning.
Watching it again last night I found myself thinking of sacrifice. Norin Rad, the eponymous surfer says he has no choice but to lead Galactus, the devourer of worlds to one planet after another. He says that the lives of his family, his whole home world is at stake. In the end though, he decides that his own fate is not worth protecting when compared to bringing an end to the destruction of Galactus. In the end he stands in the gap, stops Galactus and destroys him, seemingly at the cost of his own life, although we do get the stereotypical Hollywood, "he's okay really, in case we want another sequel".
Sacrifice is always costly. It will definitely cost us and it may cost others too. For the Silver Surfer, if he had failed it would have cost him his life and those of his family, but it was a risk worth taking. As another big budget effects-laden extravaganza would have it, no sacrifice, no victory. Destruction was heading our way too. Just as earth was entirely ill-equipped to stop Galactus, a planet-munching ball of gas and energy, so too were we entirely incapable of doing anything to stop the inevitable out-pouring of the wrath of God for our sin. He is holy, we are sinful - the punishment was due and deserved. God owed us nothing.
But because he is rich in mercy, God made us alive in Christ when we were still dead in our transgressions. We could not help ourselves and we did not deserve any help. Just as Norin Rad owed us nothing, so too was the case with Jesus. But he came anyway. He laid down his life for us. He took upon himself the full outpouring of God's wrath, so that we who could not have borne it and lived would not have to. He took our punishment so that we need not take it ourselves.
God, who owed us nothing and against whom we had only ever sinned, took it all. He did not come to seek his own good, or to be waited on or worshipped. He came so that he could die, so that the price could be paid, the debt satisfied and so that we could go free.
Amazing love, oh what sacrifice. The son of God, given for me. My debt he pays and my death he dies. That I might live. That I might live.