Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning: Are we defined by our past?

With Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning out now in cinemas, Calum Montgomery reminds us that God sees beyond our mistakes.

I remember watching a DVD of Mission: Impossible III and being hooked. I went back and rewatched all the Mission: Impossible films and kept up with each new release. Whether it’s the epic stunts or end-of-world storylines, they are a staple of the action genre.

Now, 29 years after the first film, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is out in cinemas. Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise) and the rest of the Impossible Mission Force face a new threat, the Entity. The Entity is an evil artificial intelligence (AI) capable of hacking nuclear systems, sending out convincing false messages and editing any data. No one knows who to trust. Every country wants to gain control over the Entity and the only person able to save the day? Ethan Hunt.

The film has callbacks linking back to the very first film in the franchise. One of the Entity’s most dangerous skills is the ability to predict the future based on what it’s seen before. Hunt needs to stay one step ahead, constantly thinking: ‘What is the last thing the Entity would expect me to do?’

Like most AI systems, the Entity is limited to what it’s seen before: people’s past patterns and behaviours. Most of our technology today does the same thing – it sees what we like, what we scroll away from and decides what to show us next. While algorithms and AI can spot patterns, they can’t tell us why. Why, in the Mission: Impossible films, does Ethan Hunt constantly break the rules? Why does he always save his team?

The line that follows Hunt throughout the film comes from Eugene Kittridge, director of the Impossible Mission Force: ‘Our lives are the sum of our choices and we cannot escape the past.’ It’s a great line, something you’d expect just before the screen goes black and the credits roll.

Of course, we’re shaped by our past, our choices and experiences. But we’re also so much more!

It’s easy to get stuck in our past patterns, to believe our future will look like our past. In a world that is so data-driven – judging and predicting, based on our past watches, purchases or likes – it can be easy to feel like you are stuck in a loop, a never-ending season, that whatever you do, nothing changes.

But God invites us to more, to something new. Just look at Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1. Generations of beauty from brokenness, it is full of God’s grace flowing throughout history.

God isn’t limited by an algorithm or our past: he sees more. During Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, one character refers to the Entity as the ‘Anti-God’, a being so focused it can’t see past your past. God, on the other hand, sees your future despite your past!

The world might try to define us by what we’ve done or who it thinks we are, but we are defined by God’s love for us. We are loved, despite our past mistakes. We are loved despite our history.

God loved us long before we knew him. 1 John 4:10 reminds us that he loved us first. God doesn’t look, judge and predict based on the past: God transforms us into something new. His love for us breaks us out of the past and into new life with him.

Reflect and respond

• Look back at your own life. What would be included in your spiritual genealogy? Who or what has helped shape your relationship with God?
• Look forward. What kind of season are you in?
• Where is God calling you to go next? What is your next mission?