Mary Jane, lying on the floor of the club where she works after being knocked down by a raging Peter Parker, asks perhaps the most important question of the entire Spider-Man series of movies.
“Who are you?”
Peter answers honestly: “I don’t know … I don’t know.”
Do you know who you are? Do you ever feel out of control, like something has control of you? Do you feel that the symbiotic black suit has become a permanent part of you, that you cannot take it off?
The longer we wear the black costume, the harder it is to take it off. And the harder it is to get off, the more it takes us over and keeps us from being truly ourselves.
Peter gets a clue about what has taken him over, keeping him from being who he really is, when he glances down at his chest and sees the top of his Spidey costume. The black Spidey costume.
We have already seen how the symbiote finds a willing host in Peter Parker and how, once it forms the black suit, it gives Spider-Man the sense of greater power—which leads to stronger feelings of hate, arrogance and vengeance. Once we let sin have an inch, it will take a yard of our hearts. It will become a body of death that we must carry wherever we go. Is there a way out?
“Who are you?”
Mary Jane’s question echoes in Peter’s mind as he stands outside of the club in the rain. At first he looks down at the ground, ashamed of what he has done and who he has become. Then he looks up and sees … a gothic church steeple topped by a cross. And the next time we see Spidey, he is perched on the side of the steeple, under the cross.
This is more than just symbolic imagery or heavy-handed direction from Sam Raimi. It is truth. The only place where we can become free from the grip of the symbiote, from the hold sin has on us, is under the cross. It is on the cross that our freedom from sin was purchased.
This is not just some religious-sounding expression. According to Old Testament law, when the people of Israel sinned, they had to offer an animal sacrifice, spilling its blood on an altar, in order to be forgiven. The appointed High Priest was constantly making sacrifices for the sins of the people, because they, like us, had a habit of abandoning God in favor of themselves.
As Jesus hung by nails on the cross, His blood poured down the wood all the way to the ground. It was by this blood sacrifice that God declared our sins dealt with once and for all. If that is not great news, then what is?
Is Spider-Man thinking about Jesus’ sacrifice as he clings to the church steeple? We don’t know. But we next see Spidey going into the bell tower to try to pry the suit free. He has changed his mind about the black suit; it may give him more power, but it has changed him in ways he does not like. So now, instead of being enamored with the black Spidey suit, he realizes that it is wrong for him to wear it.
This “change of mind” has a different name: “repentance.” When we hear the word “repent,” we may think it means to become a better person, to clean ourselves up. But that is as impossible as it is for Spider-Man to pull the symbiote suit off of himself. If we could take care of our own sin problem, why did God need to sacrifice His own Son on the cross?
No, we can no more clean ourselves up sufficiently to please God than Peter can be his normal, humble self while clad in black. But we can change the way we think about our sins. When we admit that our thoughts, words or actions are against the plan God has given us, when we stop thinking we’re cruising and realize we’re stuck in mud, we are repenting. We are changing our minds about sin. And this is the beginning of the end of the symbiote.
In the sanctuary of that same church, Eddie Brock is praying. He comes to God, he says, humbled and humiliated. He has but one request.
“I want You to kill Peter Parker.”
And in a way, Eddie’s prayer is answered. Spider-Man, trying to pull the suit of black goo off of his body, stumbles against the church bell; the sound begins to vibrate the symbiote free. The more the bell rings, the more Spidey is able to pull away the goo. Finally he lies in the shadow of the cross, naked but free.
His sinful self is now dead. It has been killed by the power of the cross. The apostle Paul related his own similar death in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Our choice is similar to that of Peter/Spidey: We can remain clothed in a costume that smothers the real us and that will, in the end, overtake us completely. Or we can come to the cross, change our minds about wearing the suit and have it peeled (or should we say “pealed”?) off. We may at first be ashamed of our nakedness, but soon God will clothe us—not with a costume, but with garments of salvation, purchased at the ultimate cost (see Isaiah 61:10).