In previous posts, I’ve shared how I interact with music and paintings, using them to intentionally focus on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable” (Phil. 4:8). It shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m the same way with movies. Even when I’m watching casually, just for fun or to unwind, my eyes and ears habitually evaluate the filmmakers’ worldviews and contributions to truthful conversations.
For example, after watching Across the Spider-Verse, I told my dad, “It changed the way I think about the incarnation!” After the new Barbie movie, I had several conversations about how humans, as image-bearers of God, exercise their creative powers of world-making while playing with toys.
So, when my church announced they’d be spending the four Sundays in December considering the truths of the biblical Christmas story alongside classic Christmas movies, I was on board. How great, I thought, if each person became a little more intentional and engaged with what they watch, instead of being passive and thoughtless consumers.
Up first in this seasonal quest was The Polar Express.
The movie opens with a voice-over from a narrator. It is our unnamed “Hero Boy,” who recalls one Christmas Eve when he lay in bed: “I was listening for a sound I feared I’d never hear: the ringing bells of Santa’s sleigh.” So begins a journey from doubt to belief.
“It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21)
When the Polar Express pulls up to his house, the Hero Boy runs outside to investigate. The conductor steps outside and calls, “All aboard!” Then he looks at the Hero Boy and says, “Well? You coming?” A confused Hero Boy asks, “Where?”
“Why, to the North Pole, of course,” the conductor answers. “This is the Polar Express!” When the boy hesitates and then steps away, the conductor shrugs, “Suit yourself.” The train pulls out, and at the last minute the boy jumps onto the moving train.
Not much longer, the train makes another stop outside a house. From the windows of the train, the kids onboard look out to see the conductor standing in front of another boy (named Billy, we soon learn). Although we can’t hear Billy’s voice at all, we hear the conductor repeat, “Why, to the North Pole, of course! This is the Polar Express!” Like the Hero Boy, this boy hesitates, and the conductor says, “Suit yourself.”
We get the sense that the conductor has this exact exchange again and again, year in and year out. At every stop, the same call goes out. Those who receive the call have the same questions and moments of hesitation, and the same answers always follow.
This neatly pictures the way the Gospel message is sent out: Those who have heard and believed the Word are called to pass that good news along. The Apostle Paul explains in his letter to the Romans, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 3:14-15). Although God could choose to communicate miraculously by any means he chooses—even by arranging the stars to spell out the truth—instead he has chosen to use the words of ordinary, imperfect people. He chose to send out the Apostles, saying, “Go therefore” (Matt. 28:20). They’re sent out into the world to take the call forward, “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks…for a reason for the hope that is in [them]; yet…with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15-16).
As that call, “All aboard!”, goes forward, Jesus exhorts, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:23). After the call to climb aboard is embraced, the central question of whether our Hero Boy will have ears to hear the bells of Santa’s sleigh is central to The Polar Express.
“What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them” (Romans 1:19)
On our own, we can’t find our way to belief. Scripture makes clear that since our first parents chose to rebel against God in a proud attempt to define truth for themselves, “None is righteous, no not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:10-11). If that weren’t clear enough, Paul continues, “All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (3:12). Now, in our fallen state—a state Reformed doctrine calls “total depravity”—any good that is in us or that we see in the world is because God is graciously holding darkness back from being as dark as it could be. As James puts it, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).
Among his many gracious gifts, God has not left us in the dark, without knowledge of him. Rather, he has revealed himself to us. This revelation comes to us primarily in two ways, which the Reformed tradition refers to as general revelation and special revelation. The Belgic Confession outlines the difference between the two:
We know Him by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to see clearly the invisible things of God, even his everlasting power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says (Romans 1:20). All which things are sufficient to convince men and leave them without excuse. Second, He makes Himself more clearly and fully known to us by His holy and divine Word, that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to His glory and our salvation.
Belgic Confession, Article 2
In other words, God has gifted to us “The Book of Nature” (general revelation) and “The Book of the Bible” (special revelation). Both categories of revelation come through in The Polar Express, as the children make their way to the center of the North Pole to meet Santa.
Special revelation is seen clearly through the Hero Girl, who is a believer in Christmas who has ears to hear from the start: “When Santa’s sleighbells ring,” she sings, “I listen all around.” She can hear “the herald angels sing,” but Billy laments, “I never hear a sound.” She can hear the sounds sent from Father Christmas, but Hero Boy and Billy—the two boys who hesitated to climb aboard—cannot.
When the Hero Boy, Hero Girl, and Billy get separated from everyone and must find their way to the square alone, the Hero Girl can hear the bells of Santa’s sleigh in the distance. “You hear that?” she asks the boys. “The bell!”
“What bell?” the Hero Boy asks.
“The sleighbell!”
“Sleighbell?”
“Don’t you hear it? It’s coming from that tunnel. That’s the way we should go. Come on.” She leads them confidently toward a dark tunnel, balancing on a narrow rail (a “narrow way,” perhaps?).
Following her, Billy says, “I hear it, too!” Invited by his new friends to go meet Santa together, his heart has softened and his ears have opened. Still, Hero Boy is in the dark:
“I don’t hear anything.” He even presses her, as he has before, “Are you sure?” She is, and they follow the sound to get closer to Santa.
As they continue their journey, general revelation comes into play, too. They come to a system of conveyor belts meant to transport Christmas presents to Santa’s bag. In this space, there is silence: “I don’t hear it,” Hero Girl says. Billy can’t either. Hero Boy, looking around him, says, “I think we should follow those arrows.” They do, and that leads them to Santa’s bag, which leads them to Santa’s sleigh in the center of the square.
In this scene, Hero Boy looks at the world around him—at “general revelation”—and is able to follow the signs. Together, through both general and special revelation, the children are able to make their way to Santa.
“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise” (1 Cor. 1:27)
It is a central point in Reformed theology that our ability to “follow the signs” of revelation is itself a gracious gift from God. John Calvin wrote,
“[A]s the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any books however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly.”
Institutes I.xiv.1
Recalling that we, in our fallen state, are no longer naturally inclined to even want to see God, we are dependent on God to open our eyes and ears–to give us “glasses” to correct our vision as we look at the world and at the Word.
Without graciously gifted corrective lenses, all the knowledge in the world will be missing the fundamental piece that ties everything together. It is in this spirit that Jesus says, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants” (Matt. 11:25). Similarly, Paul writes, “For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:21-22).
There are plenty of “wise” guys in The Polar Express who demonstrate this. One of them is Hero Boy at the beginning of the film. His younger sister, Sarah, expresses to their parents her concern at some of the “proofs” her brother has given her to discredit Santa: “He said Santa would have to fly faster than light to get to every house in one night,” she says worriedly, “and to hold everyone’s presents, his sled would be bigger than an ocean liner!”
Himself struggling with doubts about this Christmas story, the Hero Boy rushes to a book and looks up the North Pole. The words on the page jump out clearly: “Devoid of life.” It’s written right there in a scientific book, so it must be right. Right?
Besides Hero Boy, Hero Girl, and Billy, the only other Polar Express passenger with significant lines is a nameless character referred to in the credits as Know-It-All. This boy loves to share random facts with everyone. He knows all the facts, including how many quarts of hot chocolate Montezuma, king of the Aztecs, drank each day. He knows all the rules of train travel, including that “it’s a violation of safety regulations…for a kid to cross moving cars without a grown-up.”
Further, he knows how to interpret all that’s happening. “You missed it! We were on what looked like a frozen lake,” he tells Hero Boy, who’s just returned from the thick of the action, where the train really was off the tracks and on a frozen lake. “But I know it was just an optical illusion,” Know-It-All says. “He said the train was on ice. I said it’s impossible.” Know-It-All has a lot of knowledge, but it doesn’t do him (or any of his fellow passengers) a whole lot of good.
When he stands before Santa, Santa says, “Young man…patience. And a smidgen of humility might also serve you well.”
To the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “[W]e know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God” (1 Cor. 8:1-3). As we seek to understand the world around us and our place in it, our default setting ought to be humility. James writes, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble…Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:6, 10). It is when the Hero Boy finally gives up, humbles himself and says, “Okay…Okay! I believe. I believe. I believe,” he can at last hear the sleighbell.
“And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8)
Opening gifts is exciting. At Christmastime, we see presents wrapped under the tree, and anticipation builds as we wonder what’s inside. The children on the Polar Express step into the city square eagerly, wondering who will receive the “first gift of Christmas” from Santa. There’s something special and exciting about looking forward to a gift.
The Bible speaks about the real gift of Christmas in a similar way. Luke writes, “For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light” (Luke 8:17). Since the beginning, all the way back in Genesis (3:15), God promised to step in and graciously fix what we’d willfully broken. For so long, how he would do that was a hopeful mystery. Paul writes of “the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to the saints.” He shares excitement over “the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:26-27). To put it in our gift terms, the coming of Christ at last removed the wrapping paper and showed us the gift of God.
This gift is, truly, a free gift. In one of the most oft-quoted passages in the New Testament, Paul writes, “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ.” He emphasizes that it is a gift: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:4-9).
When the conductor meets the Hero Boy outside the train, he looks at his notes and reads, “No photo with a department-store Santa this year, no letter to Santa, and you made your sister put out the milk and cookies!” Hero Boy does not get invited to come aboard because he was good this year. He just gets invited. It’s a free gift.
When he later inquires, “Who gets the first gift of Christmas?” the conductor answers, “He will choose one of you.” So, too, the choice is God’s. As he declares to Moses, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Ex. 33:19).
Benediction
This year, “when Christmas comes to town,” may we have ears to hear the Word and eyes to see every good and perfect gift that comes down to us from the Father of Lights. In a world filled with puffed up knowledge, may we humble ourselves and find Wisdom.
If no one’s invited you yet, here it is: “All aboard!”
Up Next: Elf
Sources:
- The Belgic Confession. 1561. Article 2, “The Means by which We Know God.” https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/belgic-confession
- Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Vol. 1. 1536. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/c/calvin/institutes/cache/institutes.pdf
Discussion Questions:
- As the Polar Express makes its way to the North Pole, the train and its passengers encounter many obstacles. Some are external: The train has to make its way through Caribou Crossing, Glacier Gultch, and Frozen Lake. Others are internal: Hero boy struggles with doubt, and Billy struggles with loneliness. What external obstacles to faith do we face today? What about internal obstacles?
- Which do you think are more threatening or harder to overcome, the external or internal obstacles? Why?
- How does God tend to communicate most loudly and clearly to you? Give an example of a moment you had “ears to hear”—when you received God’s communication, loud and clear.
- How have other people contributed to your ability to “follow the signs”? Who in your life has taught you the most about who God is, whether by teaching you truths from the Bible or by modeling God’s attributes?
- In the movie, the Hero Boy and Hero Girl reach out to a lonely boy named Billy, who is convinced, “Christmas just doesn’t work out for me.” They stop the train so he can board; they bring him hot chocolate; they invite him and give him courage to go meet Santa with them. How do their actions parallel the ways Christians are called to pursue those experiencing darkness? Give some specific examples.
- Is there a “Billy” in your life right now? How can you “stop the train,” “bring him hot chocolate,” or “invite him and give him courage” in this Christmas season?
- Check out Nicole Unice’s message on The Polar Express, given this past Sunday as Part 1 of Ward Church’s series, Christmas at the Movies. What moments from her message, the movie, and Scripture give you fresh insight into the Christmas story?
Detroit, Reformed. 
Leave a comment