Please note, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is rated PG-13. Some time passes after T'Challa's Burial in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Shuri is still struggling to come to terms with what has happened, burying herself in work. Ramonda, her mother and Queen, sees that Shuri needs a break. She takes Shuri out for a traditional Wakandan ceremony designed to help the mourners mark the end of the grieving period by burning their funeral garbs. On the surface, this might seem wrong. Yet as said here before, mourning isn't unchristian, and we make allowances for that mourning. It is often needed and helpful. However, Shuri can't move forward with her life, even if it seems like she has. So Ramonda walks her through the ceremony and her own encounter with T'Challa through them. What she is trying to do is remind Shuri there is hope that T'Challa is still present beyond this world. What she is doing is trying to remind Shuri there is joy for T'Challa, even in death. While Shuri proves resistant, Ramonda nevertheless holds onto hope that Shuri will eventually hear her. The loss of a loved one is hard. It is hard because we will not have any more experiences with them in this life. That grief can get us stuck. It can keep us from moving forward in our lives in a healthy way. What Ramonda is asking isn't to "get over" T'Challa's death. Ramonda herself shows throughout the film that she is still mourning. Moving forward isn't moving past since we continue to live with the grief, at least in this life. What Ramonda is calling Shuri to do is to realize T'Challa is still out there, just not in this world. T'Challa is having an experience beyond what we can imagine, which is a good thing. These are the same things we must remember as Christians. We hold onto hope of life in the world to come. That is a key component of our Faith. While we mourn for the dead, we also are grateful for the gift they receive in the life with Jesus beyond this life in this world. There is nothing we can ask for greater than that. Thus with death, and the mourning that follows, we also experience hope and joy for what the dead have received and what we will one day have with them too.
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Please note, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is rated PG-13. Previously, we saw the joy there is in burial because it reminds us of the hope we have in the life to come. The symbols we see in the service are also important in helping us recognize this. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever does a beautiful job illustrating this. At the end of the ceremony, T'Challa's body is taken up in the Royal Talon, the chief Wakandan aircraft for the Black Panther. From there T'Challa's body is taken to the City of the Dead, specifically to the place that all the Black Panthers before have been laid to rest. The rising up of T'Challa's body is a reminder that he no longer resides in this world, but in a world beyond in the Ancestral Plane. It might seem strange to us in modern times that a body rising would signify this. We know that beyond the sky is space and the rest of the solar system, galaxy, and universe. Yet this symbolism of the sky representing the beyond has been with us since ancient times. It is even reflected in Jesus' Ascension in the sky after His Resurrection and at the end of His earthly ministry. While we are not able to do something quite so dramatic and beautiful as in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, we do include a lot of symbolism to reflect our move beyond this life. One of the chief ways we do this is through the Paschal Candle. This is the candle we light every year at the start of the Easter Season, the Season of the Resurrection, the life beyond this one. The Candle remains lit from the start of Easter to the Day of Pentecost, the final Sunday of Easter. It is also lit at Baptisms, when we join in the Resurrection of our Lord, and at Burial services, when we have passed into that new life with our Lord Jesus Christ. These symbols help us remember the joy in death. These symbols help us remember that death is not the end, but simply a moving beyond. |
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The Rev. Trey KennedyHere is my take on how Superheroes and other characters can help us know God better. Categories
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