TOP GUN MAVERICK—Prophetic Perspective

Top Gun Maverick Prophetic Perspective

As the Rear Admiral, played by Ed Harris, shows up to kill a flight program, Maverick (Tom Cruise) does what “mavericks” do, and he launches the F-18 into the air before the Admiral can park his car. His peers attempt to dissuade him. “I know what happens to everyone else if I don’t,” is Maverick’s response. Mach 10 will save the program, but in maverick style, he hits Mach 10.4.

Mavericks, by definition, are “unorthodox independent-minded persons. However, mavericks are much more than that. They are today’s Manifest Sons and Daughters and visionaries who, with reckless abandon, achieve what’s never been achieved before in the Kingdom. By virtue of who they are, they shake everything that can be shaken, garner Kingdom influence, and take crazy risks while cutting new territory; echoing the mantra of the classic Star Trek, they go “Where no man has gone before.” They are not trying to save a reputation. Nor do they care about the rank and file of the old regime. “You should be a two-star general by now, yet here you are,” says the Rear Admiral, who is so disappointed that he doesn’t get the privilege to clip Maverick’s wings permanently. “I am where I belong, Sir,” Maverick replies, unfazed by the establishment dis. The difference between the two regimes and eras is stark in contrast.

The Mavericks that God is raising up today are cut from a different cloth. They are confident—not in their abilities perse, but rather they are confident in their Union with the Master. But, unlike today's religious relics, they blaze a trail and take everyone with them! The Old Regime, the Age of the Church, functioned in many ways like modern corporations as opposed to an Ekklesia—a called-out assembly of prophetic and intercessory warriors who are other-worldly—the latter are unto God. They wear the mantle of fathers and mothers in the faith and are tasked, like Maverick, to teach a radical generation that which challenges them at their very core. The Rear Admiral’s parting taunt as Maverick leaves for his Top Gun assignment, “The end is inevitable, Maverick. Your kind is heading to extinction.” As if an AI robot could easily replace the skill set that Maverick has! In response to his “extinction,” Maverick says, “Maybe so, sir, but not today.” C’mon!

Maverick tells the Admiral of the mission to which he has just been conscripted to, in his mind lead, “As good as they are, sir, they still have something to learn.” Then, the bomb drops—Maverick won’t be “flying” in the mission (initially, right?!). He is commissioned to teach the Top Gun elite pilots everything he knows. “I am not a teacher. I’m a fighter pilot. It’s not what I am, it's who I am. How do I teach that?” Teaching “who he is” isn’t Maverick’s only challenge. Rooster, Goose’s son, is among the mission training ranks. In the first movie, Maverick’s F-14 goes into an unrecoverable flat spin, from which he can’t pull out. He and Goose are forced to eject from the plane, but it ends badly for Goose when he is killed in the process. Speaking into the conflict that has yet to be fully confronted, Ice assures Maverick, “The Navy needs Maverick. The kid needs Maverick. That’s why I fought for you.” Maverick laments his choice to pull Rooster’s application from the Naval Academy at his mother’s behest. Maverick, in all sincerity, didn’t think he was ready yet. He doesn’t break the confidence he had with Rooster’s mother explaining to Penny, his love interest, “He will always resent me for what I did. Why should he resent her too? I was trying to be the father he lost; I wish I would have done it better.”

Mavericks are mavericks, and, as such, they never fit a mold. They break all the rules. They are bulls in a china shop on steroids, but Heaven’s purpose and agenda mark them to cut paths into the Unfamiliar so that others can come. They do it messy. Their journeys are messy. They offend everyone—particularly the outgoing Regime, who often lead from their position, not from a place of forged and earned relationship. Like the Navy, the systems of this world and the Church annihilate dissenters, mavericks, pioneers, and forerunners. The critical difference in this era of the Kingdom is that the Mavericks have been seasoned by fire, trauma, rejection, and hope deferred many times over, yet they are still STANDING. They may not look like much—they are a ragamuffin band of bandits and misfits. But, they have come to trust a Person, not an outcome. They have flint in their foreheads and steel in their backbone. They know that God is good because they plummeted into deep waters in the wasteland and found refreshment in the intimate kisses of the Lover of their souls—Jesus. The Unfamiliar is their norm, and they are no longer tethered to their painful pasts. They are OK with unscripted lives and desire nothing but the sanctuary of God where they see things rightly. They are Heavenly. They know that revelation and intercession are the currency of this era. They are the Revival. They are the Shift. They are the Breaker. They are the Father’s House. This is what makes them different. They are Mothers and Fathers in the faith, and they won’t squander the wine or molest the harvest. The generation they are called to parent can be cocky like the Top Gun elites, and their father and family wounds have made them skittish of all things “adult.” They watched their “Christian” families blow up. They often endured hypocrisy in their family when religion failed to yield to true repentance.

Maverick had to show his Top Gun recruits what they didn’t know and couldn’t do. He had to do it by doing it with them—total immersion. He had to be with them in the fire, and they needed to see what he was made of. His actions, not his words, spoke the loudest—as should ours if we want to partner with a generation of Mavericks. They need us, but we also need them. We must be the repairer of the breach, and, when we are, we shall reap it in return. We have to remember that the generation having been tutored in the school of the Pharisees are living in reaction to all things “Christian” as they have known it.

Perception is EVERYTHING. It is not what parents or others intend that is on trial—it's the generation's perceptions that Jesus has ruled in their favor and ours. They are hungry for the REAL DEAL, but their trust in those who lead them must be earned and not taken for granted. They have to know that we, too, are raw, human, fallible and that we will quickly own our own mistakes. In this movie, Maverick must navigate Rooster’s rage at all that went wrong—namely the death of his father and the dismissal by Maverick as a Naval Academy prospect. The generation is navigating the same terrain. We have been mantled to bridge the gaps, heal the wounds, and live before those we lead in ways that facilitate the Redemption of Heaven. It is a position that must be earned—never assumed, and must look different from what they already know.

After the death of Iceman, the one person in the military who understood the need for a maverick, the establishment buckles down and reasserts its power. Iceman is symbolic of the narrow band of sages that have survived in the Old Regime and have been strategically placed and hidden by Heaven. Maverick is promptly taken off the mission he trained the pilots to tackle as the establishment and satan chuckle in unison. Another sharp contrast is drawn here between “systems,” and relationally based koinonia that Believers were made for that provokes Maverick to “find a way” in Unfamiliar territory to accomplish the mission. The Top Gun cadre of pilots balks at the system imposter’s attempt to redefine the mission. The mission will achieve the goal of destroying the target—the pilots will be casualties of war—system heroes. The preservation of life doesn't fit the cog in the wheel schematic. The Navy doesn’t have room for mavericks. Maverick intercedes by running the mission in real-time, which involves three bona fide miracles to accomplish when the training program becomes the mission. First, he shaves 15 crucial seconds from the training time to make his point on steroids. BAM! Again, earning the right to lead the team by proving that it is not the plane but the pilot who determines the outcome, he chooses Rooster as his wingman. He assures his superiors that his mandate is for them to return safely—they will not be sacrificed on the altar of the mission—they will do it together and come home.

Another significant distinction in the generation of mavericks is that the New Maverick leaders are called to partner with and lead—they will lay their lives down for each other. In the final scenes, Maverick sacrifices himself to save Rooster and is forced to eject into enemy territory. Rooster, against the orders of his commander, who refuses to go after Maverick, hears the voice of his mentor reverberating in his head, “Don’t think, just do.” He goes after Maverick, who has earned his wings as a “father” in a forced ejection less than a mile from where Maverick landed. Rooster, a now emerging father, faces off with Maverick, who is angry because the point of his sacrifice was to save Rooster! Squaring up, Rooster retorts, “You taught me to act—not think!” Disarmed, Maverick does an about-face as he takes in the transformation of the angry son into Maverick bearing the same mantle he carries as a father of leaders. Together, they devise a plan to hijack an enemy F-14 in an escape riddled with impossibility. The absolute prerequisite for raiding the enemy and taking back all that has been stolen is marrying the generation of Father and Mother Mavericks to the generation of Mavericks that God is raising up. It is a lock-step mission forged in the healing of generations. We are not simply the ceiling that becomes the next generation’s floor. We all get to dance in a Kingdom without limits. This is the generation that will link arms with the Fathers and Mothers in ways that have not been seen or encountered in any previous age to do great exploits as Glory Carriers mantled for the miraculous.