I went to see the new Bond movie tonight so if you haven’t gone to see it, you might want to save off on this blog until you do go see it. I try to not give many spoilers out anyway, but some are inevitable for a review unfortunately.
This Bond movie continues the story behind Casino Royale with Bond still suffering from the loss of the girl that he loved. This is quite different from what we normally see of Bond who is generally just a playboy going around from girl to girl and not forming any commitment whatsoever to them. The girl in the last Bond before this was different and the loss of her was all the harder.
While normally, Bond is cool and stoic, and in this one he is in many scenes, one still sees something in him that is anger. There is a drive for revenge in this one. The quest is personal as he is seeking something. It is not just answers. This is a case where it seems more information will not help him out. He wants more.
In my conclusion, this movie is about forgiveness.
I have heard that Philo once said, “Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” I wonder how much we consider that. I wonder how much I consider that. Each person that you meet each day is having their own struggles. There are things even close friends can be hesitant to reveal to one another. Some things you just don’t want to bring up.
One of those involves forgiveness. There is a story where in a town once someone wired a message to twelve of the most important people in town one evening that said “All is revealed! Flee now!” By the time morning had come, half of them had left town. What if you got such a message? Would it send a shiver up your spine?
Forgiveness is an odd thing. It doesn’t come cheap, as it cost the blood of the Son of God, but at the same time, it comes easily. Picture if someone sold all they had to give you one thing. Giving that one thing to you could be an easy act, but that easy act comes at a great cost. I believe that forgiveness is really easy for God. In fact, it’s a delight for him. He wants us to know how gracious and loving he is. It comes at a great cost though.
It’s not that God won’t forgive us. Many of us know deep down he has.
It’s that we don’t forgive ourselves.
If we can’t forgive ourselves, part of us thinks God doesn’t.
I wonder how it would be if we could just pause and finally realize one day that God has indeed forgiven us.
This Bond movie had a lot of the normal characteristics of Bond movies. It had the explosions and the bullets and the stabs and the beautiful women, but it was quite different. Bond leaves the final villain to be eliminated by those he has betrayed. There is one Bond girl in the movie who you expect to see it happen as it always does to a Bond girl, but it doesn’t. This is the one time I remember that he doesn’t sleep with the Bond girl. She even says she wishes she could set him free.
Biblically, we know the truth will set us free.
What is that truth?
Forgiveness.
What is a quantum? There are many definitions in the dictionary, but I think the one that we are to go for is that which refers to a quantity. Solace would refer to the peace. Bond is one in this movie who isn’t sleeping well. He has no peace. At the end, M asks him if he found what he was looking for and he says yes.
He found that quantum of solace.
He found that forgiveness.
Now we Christians realize that true forgiveness comes from God and without that, any self-forgiving is useless, but we can still take that valuable message from the movie. We can’t let the past control us. We can’t put together broken eggs. There’s no sense crying over spilled milk. We cannot live in the past and in the present both. It must be one or the other.
We too must find our quantum of solace.
For us, it truly is in God. The question is, have we truly realized it?
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