Grace

Last week I went to see the new film version of the musical Les Misérables. I was delighted to discover how powerfully it expresses some key Christian beliefs.

Roughly-translated, ‘Les Misérables’ means ‘The Wretched ones’ – a reference to those in early 19^th-century France where the musical is set who suffered from grim political and social conditions, injustice, and sexual exploitation.

The character Fantine’s famous song sums it up: ‘I dreamed a dream in times gone by when hope was high and life worth living. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.’

I suspect many of us have some experience of this level of anguish, that behind our carefree façades we know the haunting of despair.

But into the sadness of Les Misérables comes a springtime of transformation, best described by the Christian word ‘grace.’

Jean Valjean has served 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf to keep a hungry relative from starving. Upon his release, he finds himself still ostracised because of his criminal record, welcomed by none until he meets a priest, the Bishop of Digne who graciously offers him hospitality.

Valjean betrays this trust, and legs it in the middle of the night with the church silver. He’s caught, and protests that the Bishop actually gave him the valuables. Astonishingly, the priest not only agrees with this version of events, but hands Valjean another candlestick which he had ‘forgotten’!

He tells Valjean that he should ‘see in this some higher plan. You must use this precious silver to become an honest man. God has raised you out of darkness. I have bought your soul for God.’

This mad, wild forgiveness is Christian grace. We have all messed up seriously, we all fall grievously short of God’s standards, but God freely offers us forgiveness and the gift of on-going transformation no matter the story of our past. To the Bishop, the price of forgiving Valjean was the church silver; to God, the cost of forgiving us is the death of Jesus Christ.

When we fully appreciate that we are accepted and forgiven by God we realise what a priceless, liberating gift grace is.  To grasp the wonder of God’s grace is to be inspired and empowered to show grace to others, as Valjean repeatedly does throughout the film.

And Les Misérables also reminds us that as we show grace to others so, often but not invariably, we receive grace in return. For instance, Valjean is blessed immeasurably as a result of his grace in adopting the young Cosette.

Javert is another character in the musical, the law enforcement officer, to whom grace is a foreign concept. His approach to morality is severe – you must face the consequences of your actions. He misunderstands Christian teaching, saying ‘It is written on the doorway to paradise that those who falter and those who fall must pay the price.’

In fact, the glorious message of Christianity is that the price of all our faltering has been paid by Christ, so that we can freely enter paradise. Not grasping this, Javert is unable either to give, or to receive grace.

Despite all we know about grace some of us may feel we want to get through the doors of paradise by our own efforts, believing that to accept grace is somehow demeaning. And some of us may feel that while grace may be enough for others we ourselves must always be struggling and striving to have any chance of acceptance by God.
In fact, grace is the only way through which forgiveness is found, and when we entrust ourselves to God’s grace, we are accepted by a love which will never let us go, no matter what may do, or leave undone.

God’s law, the ten commandments, shows how far we fall short, how much we need grace. Grace lifts us up, and in receiving grace we love God, and love others and so more completely fulfil the commandments.

‘Life has killed the dream I dreamed,’ says Fantine. This week, I read a book on God’s grace which referred to God is the restorer of dreams. Like Fantine’s, our dreams may have withered and died, and crumbled into despair.  God often restores our dreams, or enlarges them, or transfers them to a new context, or births new dreams in us. Everyday, life-transforming dreams, fulfillable through grace.

The most enduring dream is the dream of a new earth in the dimension beyond, a dream which sustains us through darkness. The dream with which Les Misérables concludes: ‘They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord. They will walk behind the ploughshare, they will put away the sword.’

And in everything God says to us, as to St Paul ‘My grace is sufficient for you.’
 

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 24 January 2013)