Usually the scene involves two figures wrestling desperately near the edge of a menacing cliff, a figure caught in a hail of bullets or maybe a gigantic fireball of an explosion; in the best films, all three. One moment our hero is fighting for salvation; the next second he is gone. “Dead? He’s dead?!” we cry. Then, for the millionth time since Cecil B. DeMille was a boy, the camera focuses in on that lonesome cliff edge … and a grimy hand struggles back over the edge of the abyss. A moment later, the weary, triumphant face of our hero follows. He—or she, when Sigourney Weaver is involved—is back from the dead.

Image from White House Down.

Welcome to the resurrection, Hollywood style.

The release of the latest X-Men instalment The Wolverine has introduced us once again to this script staple. In the leadup to the film’s climax, Hugh Jackman’s Logan finds himself laid out in a medical facility, reaching into his own chest cavity to tear out a metallic bug that’s attached itself to his heart. He manages to kill the creature but the flatline on a monitor informs us his heart is no longer in the job. But there are still 30 minutes left in the film, so you can imagine what happens next. The twitch of a finger; the bleep of a machine. Just when all hope seems lost Logan is back in the fight, better and badder than ever. It’s hardly surprising, because even though we come from a wide range of ethnicities and backgrounds, human beings have always longed for a hero who knows how to defeat death.

Death is Hollywood’s greatest villain, giving the measure to its heroes and appearing in a dozen guises every time we go to the cinemas. He could be President Snow trying to kill Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, the virus that sweeps the planet in World War Z, or even the classic cowled figure who stalks teenagers in Final Destination. Whatever Death figure the hero confronts, it will represent the end of a way of life, happiness, and hope. Death is the ultimate villain because Death is the ultimate full stop.

But have you ever wondered why as a species we’re not content to leave it there? Hollywood tried to make Death attractive in the evolution-driven movie Creation but it was a flop. We can’t accept that the final curtain should come down with the hero in the grave; that’s why trendy anti-endings are so disturbing. We hunger for a resurrection moment, and most films oblige. Sherlock Holmes reappears just when we thought he’d joined Moriarty in a watery grave. Harry Potter stands up just when we thought Voldemort’s curse had done him in. This month Channing Tatum will emerge from White House Down’s biggest explosion, and Ryan Reynolds won’t let a little thing like a bullet to the head get in the way of solving crimes for RIPD. The same reason accounts for all of these: the true hero always finds a way of evading Death. This is the resurrection moment, and the best ones offered by the big screen don’t just benefit the hero. Indiana Jones climbs back over the cliff to save Willie Scott; Gandalf returns from the beyond to rescue Middle Earth. It’s not enough for the hero to defeat Death. We expect their return will have life-giving implications for everyone associated with them.

Sound familiar?

The stories we entertain ourselves with aren’t just ways to wile away the hours. For millennia the humble story has been the preferred method for passing on truths that undercut ethnic and cultural differences. These story truths resonate with audiences all over the planet because they reflect the God who designed us to be part of a much larger tale. If you like, the best elements of the stories we tell each other today are the thousand fractured pieces of a mirror that reflects the greatest story every told—not the George Stevens classic, but the great story of God’s redemption of the world through Jesus Christ.

If all creation, ‘… waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed,’ and longs for its liberation ‘…from its bondage to decay’ (Rom 8:19-21), is it any wonder that all culture in some way echoes that resurrection longing?

Admittedly Wolverine rising to save his partner Yukio from death is a pretty dull reflection of the life offered to the world through Jesus’ resurrection. But the real wonder is not that we regularly see Hollywood’s heroes rising to defeat Death. It’s that in the wake of that one history-changing event we still refuse to see they’re pointing us back to the real hero.