I guess I never really got started into looking for these messages until I saw the full Matrix Trilogy and during a random discussion with my father, we just happened to start breaking down the Christian themes of the Matrix movies. We recognized Neo, The One, was Jesus coming to “deliver” people from the Matrix (the secular world) to the “real world” (heaven). The Machines and agents were the angels who kept order in the Matrix and would wipe out the humans until The One sacrificed himself to ultimately bring about peace. Cipher represented Judas, Agent Smith represented Lucifer/Sin (corrupting other programs and humans and remaking them in his image), and of course there was the direct bit with Zion, Trinity, and some other pieces that the writers made more than obvious for people who paid attention to more than just the shooting and punching.
Since that discussion though, I have seen a lot of Christian themes in almost every story I read or every movie or show I’ve watched including some of the oddest ones such as Thor, the Transformers trilogy, Tron, Naruto, Harry Potter and Dragonball. I’ve also caught myself unintentionally (but usually intentionally) incorporating a lot of the Christian themes into my own writing. It’s so easy to get caught up into the writing process that sometimes the message that we are trying to relay through the story we tell isn’t even known until we reach the end and read the whole story through for ourselves. With what I know now though, I want to use my writing ability to minister in my own way while also entertaining people, just as those before me have done for me as I grew up. The television shows, movies and books I enjoyed actually encouraged me to want to learn more about the Bible and also inspired me to become a writer.
I’ve heard something along the lines of Jesus will return after everyone has had the opportunity to at least hear the Word, but I believe that the Word has been conveyed across the world in disguise for a long time. It’s just a matter of helping people to recognize it.