A Victim of Circumstance

Sand Man

Spider-Man 3, 2007

In Spider-Man three, Flint Marco, who is played by Thomas Haden Church, he needs money, and it’s presumably for his daughter who is sick, so he decides to rob a liquor store with an accomplice. In making his getaway, he tries to steal a car from Peter Parker’s uncle Ben. He has a gun that he doesn’t intend to use, but his partner startles him and somehow, uncle Ben winds up dead. Flint is later arrested and is sent to prison, but he escapes prison and goes to visit his daughter. He tries to explain to her that he had no choice. As he continues his escape, he enters this secure area and falls into a particle accelerator, and is molecularly bonded with the sand. Now Marco can change shape and is forced into a battle with Spider-Man who is bent on revenge. At every turn, the sand man has been reacting to the forces around him. He is the ultimate victim of circumstance.

Well, the Bible tells us that sin, like this, is a slippery slope. One bad decision leads to another, and another, and another, until a person feels hopelessly out of control and they place all the blame on things that are outside of them. They play the victim card and they say, just like Flint Marco, “I had no choice”.

The first psalm paints a vivid picture of this digression. “The blessed man does not walk in the council of the ungodly, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of the scornful.”

Notice that progression: walk, stand, sit. You walk in the wrong counsel, that leads to standing in the wrong place. And once you’ve stood a while, you finally decide to sit down. And now you’re joining the wrong group. The man may think he has no choice, but in actuality, the decision was made a long time ago at the very top of that slippery slope. The life of Solomon gives us a great example of this. He knew the command of God not to marry foreign women or they would turn his heart away from God, and yet he persisted. He was deeply attached to many women and he began to build places for them to worship, then he joined in worshiping with them. You can read about that in first kings 11.

So if we feel we are stuck in victim mode, we have to break away from this cycle the same way that Sand Man did. When Peter forgave him, Sand Man stopped fighting. So, don’t be a victim. Let God forgive you and you can rise above that slippery slope.