Remnant Sojourner

The sequel to the 2020 disaster film Greenland, titled Greenland 2: Migration, depicts a world five years after a comet impact shattered civilization. Survivors, including the Garrity family, are forced to leave their underground bunker in search of a place to rebuild and survive in a fractured world.  Moving from a shattered bunker beneath the ice, a small band of survivors’ step into a broken Earth where the sky still remembers the comet. Cities are in ruins, trust is fragile, and every mile forward costs something dear. Guided by whispers of a liveable land, they cross oceans of ash and continents of loss, learning that hope is heavier than fear. They don’t know the way, or where to go as they journey across seas, deserts, cliffs, mountains, and gunfire culminating in the discovery of a fertile land of new beginnings. The Promise Land.

There are many parallels between this film and the imagery of the remnant depicted in the Bible. In Scripture, a remnant is the small group that remains after judgment, disaster, or exile. It is the “left over”, the “holy seed” that will take root again after judgment and through whom God fulfills His covenant promises.

As per (Romans 9: 27 - 29) Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”

It is just as Isaiah said previously: “Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.”

It’s also a reminder that we are just sojourners on this land, here today-gone tomorrow.

As the bible puts in Isaiah “All people are like grass,    and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.⁷ The grass withers and the flowers fall,    because the breath of the Lord blows on them.    Surely the people are grass.⁸ The grass withers and the flowers fall,    but the word of our God endures forever.”

And that is why we need the Word of God for this perilsome journey of life, as it is a map that helps us find our way. That is why the Psalmist cries in 119: 19 “I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me!” Because the commandments help us find our way. John Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress is one of those books that depicts this journey through various analogies and metaphors. The remnant sojourner needs to find his way. Didn’t someone famous say “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life …”