About ten years ago my (then) teenage nephew introduced me to the world of Percy Jackson. We were both present at a baptism and I noticed that he was reading a novel during the whole of the service. It was probably part of some teen bush warfare expressing his disapproval of the service or his discontent at being forced to attend. Max and I always got on well together so I felt able to ask him what the book was about.
‘It’s about a boy who is the son of a Greek god’ he said. Well as I have been bound up all my life with someone who claimed to be the son of a God, I had better show some interest. I talked with Max about his novel and it was an introduction to a world of wonder. Percy Jackson is a demi-god, the offspring of Poseidon the god of the sea and of an ordinary mortal mother. Apparently, the major Greek gods have all had affairs the result being a large number of children scattered throughout the USA who are rather special. They are often kids who are perceived to have some condition like ADHD or dyslexia but usually high IQs. Because they are in danger from society in some ways and because they are involved in a perpetual war to save Gods and mortals from the forces of chaos and darkness they must spend time in a special school –Camp Half-Blood where they will learn how to use the supernatural gifts with which they are endowed and be trained in the weapon and strategies necessary for the eternal battle. At Camp Half-Blood there were demi-gods and all kinds of weird creatures and a rainbow spectrum of diversity.
It is best to read these novel as good exciting adventure stories. We shouldn’t try to lumber them with neat doctrinal interpretations nor should we distort them in order to make them consistent with the Christian Gospel. They are first and foremost fun adolescent stories in which good usually triumphs over evil. Nevertheless the heroes are children of God and from them we might get a hint of what being the Son of God feels like. Percy Jackson is the offspring of Poseidon and like many an absentee father the sea God is never around when he is needed. However much the divine father might approve of his Son he can’t help him when times get rough.
We are reminded of the many times we have prayed and heard no answer we are reminded of the loneliness of Jesus in his last hours: “Father let this cup pass… nevertheless not my will but Thine… My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
In the most recent book, the Sun and the Star, Percy makes only a very minor appearance. This is not a novel that you expect your Gran to put in your Christmas stocking. The heroes are Nico the son of Hades the God of the underworld and Will Solace son of Apollo the Sun God, and they are very much in love with each other. They are as different in character as any two partners can be. Will is an extrovert, sunny and friendly. He is a comforter and a healer. Nico is angst-ridden, broody and judgemental. He is uncomfortable in bright light and he is lonely. Will loves the sunshine and he is gregarious.
In this story they are given a quest that involves a descent into hell to rescue a Titan who is being tortured in the most horrible areas of the underworld. In the Greek classic the underworld is not like our hell a place of punishment for those who are damned. It is more like the Biblical Sheol a place where almost all the dead go. Nico’s Dad is Hades and while like his son he is gloomy and angry he is not malicious he rules his realm in accordance with divine justice. But outside the walls of Hades lies Tartarus a place where there is no justice, no grace no order. Here is the place where the ancient progenitors of creation were banished. The forces of eternal malice exist only to hate and destroy anything that is either human or divine.
To this place our teenage lovers descend armed with supernatural powers that are useless against their adversaries. This is Dante’s Inferno without the safety barriers and the nearer they approach the object of their quest the weaker and more broken they become until they are at the point of disintegration. Remember, this is not a true story. It does however give us some food for Christian reflection. Holy Saturday was no pushover. Dying may well have been the easiest part. We cannot know what it was like but an old evangelical hymn puts it very well: None of the ransomed ever knew, how deep were the waters crossed: Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through, ere he found the sheep that was lost.
Before they set out on the quest Percy and his girlfriend Annabeth give Nico and Will some advice. Annabeth says ‘I would say that you and Nico have one big advantage.’ Percy nodded ‘You have each other… if any two people could survive a journey to Tartarus and back, I think it’s you two.’
And so it is that in the end the darkness, the horror the pain psychological and physical are unable to quench the love that binds the two young men together. Human love is a powerful weapon. In that other great journey through nether hell – the Divine Comedy – Dante is cured of despair and sustained by his love of Beatrice in whose eyes he sees the beatific vision. So it is that Jesus makes the journey because God so loved the world and Jesus loved his own unto the end.
And today we are celebrating the climax of that Journey that began out Jerusalem and took Jesus to the place most devoid of human love and there the gates of hell did not prevail against him. Since Easter we have been celebrating his return to those who loved him. Now we come to our part in the story. After Jesus last appearance they had waited in suspense until one day they were filled with joy love was poured into them and they knew the power and the force of God’s gift to humans. Brothers and sisters, the message from the Lord of this feast is love. Love not just your own or the like mind but love on every opportunity that he presents to you and love because of the redeeming love that first loved us.