The Time Traveler's Wife

So I saw The Time Traveler's Wife the other day.



The movie seemed like it'd be a mix between scifi and romance, but it was light on the scifi and heavy on the romance. In fact, I think the only time there was any sort of scifi was when they bring in a geneticist to discuss the time traveler's inability to control when he time travels. And that scene lasted for like all of five minutes or something. So the science of time travel in the movie is a bit scant as well as dodgy. That's not a criticism though.

More interestingly, I think the movie had some scenes and themes that could possibly be viewed in sync with a Christian perspective on life and, to a lesser degree, perhaps certain aspects of Reformed theology.

(Spoilers ahead.)

For example, the time traveler's wife had fallen in love with the time traveler when she was a little kid. That's because the time traveler would travel back in time to visit her when she was still a child. As a result, for her, there never was a time when she wasn't in love with him, because he had appeared to her from the beginning. He's always been in her life.

Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean she was romantically in love with him from the get-go. It wasn't necessarily love at first sight. But affection can be a source from which romantic love arises as well.

However, the time traveler and his (future) wife both meet for the first time when he is much younger. Maybe when they're in their mid or late 20s to early 30s or something like that. He's a librarian while she's looking for a book. She immediately recognizes him, gushing with joy. For she knew him before he knew her.

BTW, maybe it's the fact that they meet in a library and that this is a story about time travel, but this brings to mind Psa 139:16: "In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." Everything has already been written. But from their perspective, it's as if they're turning the pages of life one day at a time.

Eventually he asks her to marry him, but she replies with a firm "no." She then laughs (paraphrase): "I just wanted to see if I could resist my free will, but my free will says yes!"

In another scene, there's a fight between the time traveler and his wife. She argues she never had a choice to fall in love or not fall in love with him. He claims she always had a choice. She insists she never did, given that he's visited her numerous times throughout her life, starting when she was a little girl, so that when he first meets her from his perspective, she's already madly in love with him. He's already drawn her into himself in some way.

Later, in her anger, she yells at him, saying something like: "Who would ever want this life? You think I wanted this kind of life? Who would want a husband that always disappears?" By the end of the movie, however, when he dies (while she's still in her 40s or 50s or thereabouts and he as well), with tears in her eyes she confesses she wouldn't have traded one minute of the life she had with him and how it has unfolded for any other life. Even in her loss, she loved and appreciated him and every moment they shared. She was grateful that she did have him at all, even though it was only now and then, here and there.

Similarly, we are grateful for the life God has given us. But sometimes we aren't grateful or at least don't realize how grateful we ought to be until we're able to take a backward glance at our lives. That's part of the mystery of providence. Yet we're not to trust in circumstances and how life may appear to us, but we're to trust in God's promises in the Bible.

Regrettably, many Christians live without appreciating the time and life they do have, however seemingly little or insignificant it seems. It's a shame because, like all good things in our lives, they're a gift from God. We live only because of God's grace. The very breath we breathe is a gift. Life itself is a gift. And the time we have to appreciate it all is a gift. From cradle to grave, from birth to new birth, it's all of grace.

Now, flash forward to her future. The time traveler still visits her in her timeline (before he has died in his timeline but when she has already lost him in hers). She's been waiting for him all this time, because, being a time traveler, he could show up at any time. And he's never told her when in her future he's traveled to. He could've time traveled to her deathbed for all she knew.

In this world, nothing is permanent. No relationship, no matter how dear, will last forever. Perhaps that's why some people remain heartbroken for the whole of their lives after losing a beloved. Despite the maxim, time can't heal all wounds. Not completely. Some scars hide wounds too deep to tell.

And it's as if our love for our beloved is timeless. As if the love shared between lover and beloved transcends time.

In fact, God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecc 3:11). But he has done so in such a way so that we can't know the future. We can't figure out what'll happen to us a few moments from now let alone in the rest of our days. We could be here today but gone tomorrow. We are like a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

Time flits by so quickly. Before we know it, the hour glass of our lives is nearly gone. The sands of time are sinking. So the time to seek the things of first importance is indeed of first importance.

Our lot in this world is, inevitably, death. We are timebound creatures. And eventually our time will run out. We can't kill time, but time can and will kill us.

But just as there's such a thing as time well-spent, there's also such a thing as time ill-spent. Sometimes people are prolonging things for the sake of prolonging things rather than for anything valuable or worthwhile.

Many people want to extend their lives beyond what's reasonable. People try to seek for a fountain of youth. But even if it were possible to be forever young, there's always a cost. For instance, if one is forever young, one might still lose friends and loved ones. What's life without others to share it with?

Or to put it genetically, the telomeres on our chromosomes shorten and shorten, which affects cell division, and eventually our cells will senesce (i.e. no longer divide). This is part and parcel of the aging process. Telomerase is an enzyme which extends the length of our telomeres. But telomerase activation is also a hallmark of cancer. Among other things, cancer is the unregulated proliferation of cells. So, in a sense, we can live forever, but the price we pay is cancer.

In short, there's no escape from the march of time and, in the end, death. We may not like it -- in fact we shouldn't like it -- but it's our fate.

Yet, there is a way to escape our mortality. There's a way which is outside of us, not of us, for it has been provided for us. In fact, it's the only way. It is to look to the One who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, to the Lord God alone. He is our omnipotent Creator. He dwells in "the high and holy place." But, wonder of wonders, at the same time he dwells "with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit" (Isa 57:15).

Back to the movie. The time traveler's mother is a singer and his father a violinist. There's a musical motif running throughout the movie. It's almost as if the movie were an unfolding musical performance in a way. But maybe I'm reading too much into it here.

Related, the mother sings "Es Ist Ein Rose" or "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" in the opening scene. This is obviously a Christian hymn. Is the movie alluding to the time traveler or perhaps his daughter here? Or something else?

In any case, the hymn speaks of timeless, eternal things, yet things which unfold in time. For, while the Word of God was always with God and was God, he likewise became flesh and dwelt among us.

The time traveler saw his mother die in a car accident when he was a kid because he was in the car with her but time traveled away from the crash and averted death. He's tried going back in time to save her but, as he realizes, there's a sense in which everything has already been decided. So no matter what he does he can't change what's already happened.

I think watching the movie helps us to consider our lives in light of eternity. We're instructed to learn how to number our days. How to make the most of them. How to live in a good but fallen world before a holy and loving God. Indeed, that's living wisely, gaining a heart of wisdom.

The start of true wisdom is, as the Bible teaches, to fear the Lord. For God is sovereign and in control over all things including our very life and death. He has the power to give as well as take life. So we ought to fear him. Yet God is also good and gracious. And his goodness is most evident in the fact that he gave his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for sinners on the cross, so that those who trust in Christ alone might be reconciled to him. For all time and eternity.