The Gospel according to St. Mario

Imagine there is this video game.  This video game is so advanced, that the creator has actually managed to create sentient working minds in the characters inhabiting the game.  They are coded and programmed to have a working, although virtual mind, designed after the human brain.  Now imagine, Mario is the star of our game, and Mario is beginning to have some rather deep thoughts.

To begin with, Mario is aware of the fact that he exists.  He lives in a complicated ordered world.  There are physics which keep him grounded, and which help him stomp Goombas.  He can predict how these physics work by studying them and by knowing that each time he has jumped, for example, he has come back down.  Mario is a curious mind and he begins to study more and more of the natural world he has found himself in.  There is a fixed color scheme.  No other colors seem to exist.  Each object is actually made of tiny objects, and after a great discovery, it seems each tiny object is the product of an underlying code which decides it's colors, shapes, and properties.  The world is a strange and interesting place.  Mario's scientific inquiry shows him that nothing is as it seems at first glance. 




Mario goes along in his world, fighting some Koopa Troopers, wearing Tanooki suits, and avoiding falls to his death.  Along the way, Mario glitches and falls through a floor, and falls endlessly.  He sees that nothing of meaning exists below the floor.  It seems that outside of his meaningful environment, which has a place for him, and a purpose for him, he has found endless nothing.  Upon dying as a programmed fail safe for endless falling, Mario reappears in Mushroom Kingdom with one less life, but what he saw makes him very pensive.  There is nothing beyond his world. 

But what of his world?  Why is it here?  What does it mean?  The only natural inclination Mario seems to have is to move to the right.  To what purpose?  What will he find?  Endless Goombas mock him, long ago deciding they will move left instead. 

This is Mario's life.  This is all he is and all he has.  He cannot know more.  His senses exist as parts of the world he inhabits.  His inquiry into the nature of his world has benefits, but ultimately he can only know what his tools can show him, and all his tools are encoded products of his world as well.  Mario has a sinking feeling that there is a purpose to his life, and he feels like there must be someone somewhere who brought it all into existence, but he can't be sure.  Luigi does not worry about such things, and while Mario cannot provide evidence for his belief, walking through the land he notices that there is always another platform.  He has never been stuck.  There is always a way for him to go to the right, and he believes that this is on purpose.  Mario timidly believes that there is a creator, and that his world has a meaningful purpose.  Where is this creator?  Why doesn't he reveal himself to Mario? 

In our world, at the same time, Mario's creator Shigeru Miyamoto watches Mario and feels incredibly proud of his creation.  He sees Mario growing and learning, and watches him become more and more.  Miyamoto wishes desperately to tell his masterpiece how proud of him he is.  He wishes to tell those in the Mushroom Kingdom that they have a purpose, and a designer who feels very deeply for them.  The question is, how can he do this?

Mario ponders a strange anomaly found in an ancient cave.

Miyamoto is not capable of communicating to his creation normally, because he lives in a totally different and far more complicated world.  Mario's ears are not programmed to hear Miyamoto's voice.  Nor could they be.  Miyamoto must resort to other methods.  He resolves to encode messages into his game.  He tries manipulating Mario's world in a way that cannot be naturally explained.  Surely this would prove a transcendent being is sending a message.

The problem is that only those present would get the message.  Furthermore, Miyamoto cannot constantly interrupt the natural order of his creation for each citizen of the Mushroom Kingdom.  Everyone knows that constant cheating and world manipulation can ruin the game.  This game was in fact created with a purpose that Miyamoto doesn't want to mess up.   He seeks to guide it along, not interrupt it.  So for a time Miyamoto expects those who witnessed his intervention to spread the word.

A mysterious cave reveals to Link something exists
beyond his own world.  But who is Chris Houlihan?

At long last he cannot take it anymore, and decides he will create an avatar for him to play in the game world itself.  While it would be impossible for his creations to understand Miyamoto himself, he could still make a version of himself which they could understand and communicate to them that way.

So Miyamoto begins to explore his creation.  When he meets up with Mario he is overjoyed and begins to tell Mario how proud he is that Mario has become so wonderful.  He hugs Mario and tells him all about the process of his creation, about whether he should have had a top hat instead, and many other things. 

Mario is shocked.

Who is this guy?  Why does he think he is the creator?

He is just another sprite, a character no more amazing than any other.

Miyamoto tells Mario, "I am not of this world, but from a higher one."  Mario cannot understand, because he has climbed the tallest vines and there is nothing up there.  Miyamoto can only explain it in cryptic ways, because there is no way for Mario to understand a world he has not and cannot ever see, a world which is beyond his comprehension because it is beyond his own existence, and every tool of knowledge Mario employs cannot reach beyond his existence.

Miyamoto tells him:  "I encoded your being, I hold it together, I predestined each level, I know each of your battles, I have seen you in the grassy plains and the dark castles.  When you are weak I provide the mushroom, when you are strong, I bring on a tough foe.  Truly I tell you, before you had ever taken your first step forward, I was there.  Long after the end boss I will be there still.  Be assured I am with you, and you will crush Bowser under your heel, and lead the Mushroom Kingdom to victory over its enemies.  I have foreordained it."

Mario feeling very confused and disturbed decides it's time to back away.  Miyamoto realizes that he cannot simply persuade Mario, and decides to reveal himself in a grander way. 

Miyamoto, using debugging tools, drops an enormous mass of mushrooms in front of Mario.  Miyamoto changes the air to water, and Mario takes a swimming pose in the middle of the sky.  Mario stares in disbelief.  Miyamoto materializes Bowser in a dress, then just as quickly sends him flying into the air with a snap of his fingers.  Miyamoto continues to rain items down with a grand smile until Mario is convinced that this man is not a normal character.  From then on Mario chooses to believe everything Miyamoto says.

From him Mario learns tricks, including warp whistles, which levels have secrets (like unlocking a mushroom house by gathering all the coins)  how to best take out Lakitu, and the number of levels left until the final boss.  He fills up Mario's open slots with P wings and sends him on his way with the message that the creator is very proud of his creation and loves them all dearly.  Mario spends a great deal of time telling the story and explaining to everyone he can find that Miyamoto exists and will ensure the Mushroom Kingdom's success.  Some believe.  Many don't.  Mario can do nothing but retell the story until Miyamoto one day returns.









In the same way, God has shown miracles to His people, and expressed himself in incredible ways which were expected to be shared through the generations, like the plagues of Egypt and the splitting of the Red Sea.  Jesus was God himself, come down into a form we could understand, and He showed who He was by His power finally being crucified to bear sin and the curse of the Law for us, and resurrected in power to lead the way to glory. 

This painting called Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) by Salvador Dali shows Christ being crucified on a cross which is actually an expression of a four dimensional cube (called a tesseract) unfolded into three dimensions.  Our minds cannot understand a four dimensional cube.  This represents God's transcendence being shown to us in a way we could understand:  God come down as man.