Lessons from The Last Jedi: What I Learned from 40 Years of Training with Luke Skywalker

(SPOILER ALERT:  While I usually refrain from disclosing any plot points from movies, in this case, it is a bit necessary.  If you have not seen “The Last Jedi” yet, you might want to wait to read this since it is about a rather large element of the movie.)

There is a short scene in the original “Star Wars” (the one that came out in 1977 and had not been named “Episode IV: A New Hope” yet) after Luke Skywalker and Han Solo have rescued Princess Leia from the Death Star and are back on the Millennium Falcon making their escape.  Luke has just seen his friend and mentor, Obi Wan Kenobi, struck down by the evil Darth Vader in an epic lightsaber duel.  Luke is slumped forward and leaning on the Dejarik game board where R2-D2 and Chewbacca had been playing a game like Chess earlier.  He shakes his head sadly and says of Obi Wan, “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

I remember thinking that it seemed odd that Luke had become so attached to someone whom he had met only days before that moment.  Yet I find myself thinking the same thing after watching “The Last Jedi” last night about someone whom I have never met and could never meet because he is a character of fiction.  “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

I went into the movie with no illusions that Luke was going to be alive at the end of it.  When you give your movie a title like “The Last Jedi,” you tip your hand to everyone about what is likely to happen.  So, when the grizzled Jedi Master faded off into the sunset (literally), I was not surprised.  What did catch me off guard was the thought that I had as I drove home from the theater in the wee hours of the morning:  my hero of the last 40 years is finally gone.

While Luke has never been my favorite character in the Star Wars Universe (that would be Chewbacca), for reasons I detail below, he was always the one that I connected with the most.  As I reflect on his “becoming one with the Force” and after watching him in the original trilogy countless times, I am compelled to think about what this movie character has taught me about life in my world.

LESSON ONE:  DREAM BIG.

In the original movie, Luke thought he was just a nobody from nowhere restricted by the limitations of his family and his surroundings.  There was something sad and melancholy about that young moisture farmer kicking at the sand and staring off into the distance at the twin suns of Tatooine and wondering just how big the universe was and not knowing his place in it.  Growing up in a small town in Southeast Texas, I could relate.

But if Dr. Seuss wrote “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” for anyone, it was for Luke Skywalker.  Staring at those suns, I bet Luke never thought that he would travel into deep space, live on the frozen Outer Rim planet of Hoth, or ride a speeder bike on the forest moon of Endor surrounded by teddy bears.  In that sense, Luke showed a 9-year-old boy what it looked like to dream about places beyond The Golden Triangle of Southeast Texas and that life is really one big adventure.  While I have never been off our planet, I have been to some pretty amazing places on it and seen some things that defy description.  Luke challenged me to “get off my moisture farm” and see how vast the world really is.

LESSON TWO:  NO ONE IS EVER TOO FAR GONE.

Luke’s resolute conviction that his father, Darth Vader, still had good left in him inspired me as a 15-year-old watching “Return of the Jedi.”  Luke seemed to be the only one in the entire galaxy that believed this.  How could a guy who dressed in all black, wore a wicked helmet, and had killed women, children, and even his fellow Jedi have anything but hate and loathing inside of him?  And yet Luke refused to give up on him.

Now in “The Last Jedi,” when Leia has concluded that her son, Ben Solo, is truly dead and that Kylo Ren is all that is left, there is Luke saying again, “No one is ever really gone.”  I suppose he might have been talking about Han Solo and the idea that as long you remember someone they are not really dead, but it could also mean that Uncle Luke still believes that it is not too late for Kylo.

While I am quite certain that George Lucas did not consider the biblical reality of this idea, the notion that no one is past the point of redemption captures the very heart of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.  Long before I ever went to seminary and devoted my life to helping people realize this truth, I saw it displayed before me on a big movie screen by Luke Skywalker when it came to his father.

LESSON THREE:  IN THE MOMENT OF DECISION, CHOOSE INTEGRITY.

Even after 8 movies now, the scene after Luke has defeated Darth Vader is still my favorite.  The young Jedi stands over his defeated father and is invited by the Emperor to kill Vader and take his place.  Luke’s entire life has brought him to this one moment, and now he must make the choice.  He turns off his light saber, throws it to the side, and says to the Emperor:

“Never.  I’ll never turn to the dark side.  You’ve failed, Your Highness.  I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

Just seeing those words in print is stirring to me because I remember the first time that I heard Luke say them as I sat in the theater.  He had done it.  After feeling the relentless pull of the Dark Side of the Force, Luke had stood up to it and chosen the Light.  The Emperor, of course, was not pleased and proceeded to try and shock Luke to death with Force Lightning.  As you remember, Darth Vader stepped in and killed the Emperor, proving that LESSON TWO was, indeed, true.

In simple terms that a 15-year-old could understand, I recognized that it is honorable to die for doing the right thing.  Thankfully, Luke did not die.  But he was prepared to die.  While I hope that I never have to choose whether or not I will die for what is right, I have to choose whether or not I will live for what is right every single day. 

LESSON FOUR:  PRIDE AND ARROGANCE HAVE NO PLACE IN THE LIFE OF A SERVANT.

In “The Last Jedi,” Luke is very candid and honest with Rey about the failures of the Jedi in general and about his own failures specifically.  Plain and simple, the Jedi forgot about humility.  They were so impressed by their own abilities that they completely missed the Emperor and the other Sith Lords right in front of them.  They began to believe that they could control the Force instead of allowing the Force to control them.  Inevitably, this led to them placing power and prestige over meekness and service.

As I try to live my life today as a follower not of the Force but of Jesus Christ, I am reminded of His words to His apostles as they bickered about how to be great in the Kingdom:  “whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave” (Matthew 20:26-27).  I do not want to have to become exiled on a remote island like Luke was to learn this.  I am no Jedi, but the call of my Master is similar.  It is to serve and not to be served, and to be humble while doing it.

Seeing Master Luke fade away slowly was not as jarring as seeing Darth Vader set alight on a funeral pyre.  It was, however, an invitation for me to contemplate those lessons that have slowly been seared into me these last 40 years as I have watched one of my heroes realize and accept who he was meant to be.  May we all continue to realize and accept who we were meant to be as well.