Summer at the Movies ! Les Miserables
Heading back to work inevitably the conversation covers the holidays: Christmas, the cricket, the bushfires, but inevitably the question about what holiday movies you saw. One movie that should stir conversation is Les Miserables. My favourite movie of the holiday season.
Because the movie has so many great Hollywood stars and because the whole thing is sung (there is no significant spoken dialogue in the whole 2 hours 45mins!), it’s easy to reduce the discussion to whether you think Russell Crowe should stick to wearing a skirt and brandishing a sword as a gladiator. But don’t allow the conversation to be robbed of the movie’s grand theme of grace, undeserved mercy and favour. This deserves reflection!!
Victor Hugo's vivid account of French life under revolution is adapted for film in the story of Les Miserables. It contracts the lens on a confrontation between two individuals: a reformed prisoner Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) and Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), the policeman who can only see Jean Valjean as the lawbreaking Prisoner 24601.
Welcomed into Bishop Myriel's home soon after his release from prison, Valjean is touched by the man's hospitality but so disillusioned by his past that he robs the bishop of his only wealth (some silverware). When Valjean is brought back to face justice, Myriel surprisingly confirms Valjean's lame story that the silverware was a gift. The bishop's unexpected response humbles Valjean, for not only does Myriel refrain from pressing charges but he gives him the candlesticks as well!, suggesting he forgot to take them . The bishop's costly grace transforms Valjean’s life, who now extends to others the kind of mercy shown to him. Valjean shows compassion to Fantine, (Ann Hathaway) a factory worker fallen on hard times, and goes above and beyond in adopting her daughter Cosette as his own after Fantine dies. He even spares Javert's life, though such an act jeopardizes his own freedom.
Such is the power of grace to change a person and the lives of those around them. The story contrasts Bishop Myriel, who forgives the debt of Valjean and shows mercy which results in an utterly transformed life' and Javert, whose clinical understanding of justice and law means that no one can ever change... including himself. In such a graceless world, Javert’s life eventually spirals out of control.
These two responses to grace replay themselves in our offices, in people’s families, in our news and the topic is much more significant than we might first think: how to live life in relationship with others. It boils down to Grace & Works, the order of which the Bible never confuses. It is always God’s grace which precedes our response of good works. Always understanding the impossible debt we can never repay which God has covered and then responding in a thankful life.
1 John 4: 9-10 aptly summarises this sequence that humanity repeatedly confuses:
“This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love, not that we loved God , but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins”
Surely that’s a worthy subject of new year chit chat in the office.
This was adapted from a fantastic article by Justine Toh, “ Embodying Grace” from the Centre for Public Christianity. For further reading click here.
