"Sex, Drugs, Rock’n’Roll & Jesus," part three

The title really doesn’t fit this time – I’m not sure if there’s any sex or rock’n’roll, but there’s certainly violence. As I was drafting this blog mini-series, this blog remix popped up on my Newsgator (the program I use to subscribe to blogs). It’s a review of the movie Man on Fire, and why “I had an easier time connecting with God in the movie, ‘Man on Fire’ than I did in ‘The Passion of the Christ,’” as Jon lays it out in the first sentence. Here’s my favorite paragraph from the post, although I know you will all click HERE to read the whole thing.

“I missed it the first ten times I saw the movie. Missed that I’m Pita. I’ve lived most of my life under the stairs in a dark, dirty cage. But unlike Pita, this is the place I deserve. For although she did not ask to be kidnapped or receive this experience as a consequence of her actions, I did. If this were the story of my life, justice would have already been served. The prisoner’s life is the life I deserve. But God is like Creasy. In Isaiah 30:18 it says ‘he rises to show you compassion.’”

There is no more beautiful love story than that of a person who lays aside all power, all authority, all justice, and walks willingly to certain death to redeem their beloved.

I wish I could write another six pages about this story, the story of a man who, in the prime of his life, takes off his robes of power and allows lesser men to sacrifice him.

But you have to read Jon’s blog first.

"Sex, Drugs, Rock’n’Roll & Jesus," part two

Okay, so maybe there wasn’t any rock’n’roll. But D wrote some groovin’ tunes, and I think that counts.

I’ve been thinking about the rescue/redemption theme of Moulin Rouge since we picked it to be the next video for our group weeks ago. (Now that we’ve done it, the actual next one is The Philadelphia Story.) I love the “freedom, beauty, truth and love” theme of Moulin Rouge, because I so believe in those things – I believe they exist, and they’re God. God is love, we always say. So God is freedom. God is truth. God is beauty. And I love the freedom, beauty and truth of knowing that God is a God who rescues us, no matter how deep and dirty the pit, and he redeems us, no matter what the cost.

It’s like the story of D.

D wasn’t a flashy entertainer like Satine, but D was a whore & an adulterer. And did I mention a liar and murderer? D was pretty down & dirty. I think the list of lovers ran well into the hundreds … and the marriages were countless. D was a bad parent, too, and the mistakes D made were enormous. Yet God never gave up on D. In fact, throughout D’s life, though D’s relationship with God ebbed like the tide, God held D up as an example – a good example – of a person who loved God wholeheartedly, and who God loved unreservedly.

It’s not just that God loves a rescue story ... he loves a comeback too. Like Satine, like D, after we’ve been rescued, sometimes we still fall pretty hard, right back into the muck we got out of. Sometimes we do the wrong things for the right reasons, like Satine, and sometimes we forget what’s right and wrong, like D. The great thing about God is that he’s the God of second chances.

God knew the kind of person D was, and the kind of mistakes D would continue to make throughout life … and none of it gave God pause. This is what D wrote about their relationship: “God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever. O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask your aid.”*

And you know, God himself said that D – King David – was a man after God’s own heart. Not because he was a murdering whore, and not exactly in spite of it, but through it. Whatever his ups and downs, David was repentant. I wish he hadn’t made his mistakes to begin with, but he did. And God honored him because when he messed up, he admitted it, repented, and made things as right as he could. While David changed, God’s love for him never did. What do you do with that? When in your life have you needed that kind of love?



*Psalm 73:26 & 86:5

"Sex, Drugs, Rock’n’Roll, & Jesus"

Okay, there’s no drugs. But Absinthe was supposed to be a pretty wacky drink, so I think it counts.

I’m in a life group for single women, ages 18-25, where we eat dinner and watch a movie and then discuss the movie along with biblical themes. (Since I’m neither single nor under 25, you might have guessed that I’m the hostess.) This week we watched one of my favorite romances. So, as opposed to my previous movie post, I’ll tell you what this one’s called, so you can A) judge me for hosting a bible study on it, or B) go watch it yourself.

Here’s what “Dinner & A Movie: Chick Flicks 2” from Group Publishing, our curriculum, says about the flick in question, Moulin Rouge:

“While they may or may not have known it, the creators of Moulin Rouge! offer us a picture of Christlike love. Our young hero, Christian, ventures into a sinful and lost world in search of his love. Instead of being taken up by that lost world, he brings his own purity of heart into it – rescuing his beloved Satine from the grips of a desperate and sinful life. It recalls the biblical story of Hosea and Gomer as well as Christ’s own time on earth.”

I don’t write movie reviews anymore, but let me tell you about a few of my favorite scenes: Satine one minute sings about her dream of a new life – “someday I’ll fly away/leave all this to yesterday” – and the next acknowledges the hopelessness of such a dream – “why live life from dream to dream/and dread the day when dreaming ends?” She at once has both hope and no hope; she yearns for change, but thinks she will never be free, and knows what even a small measure of freedom will cost her. She is trapped by her past and by her own view of her self-worth. As she later shouts to her father figure/pimp, “My whole life you made me believe I was only worth what someone would pay for me.” But now she has real hope for the first time: “Christian loves me, and we’re going away…”

Even after Christian’s love for her changes her life, she still falls back into her old patterns – she does the wrong things for the right reasons. This is what reminds me of our relationship with God. Not only does he come right down into whatever mess we’re in and love us in the middle of it – giving us true freedom, hope and love – he remains faithful to us when we screw it up and push him away. 2 Timothy 2:13 says, “[Even] if we are unfaithful, He remains faithful.”

Just like the aforementioned Gomar, wife to the prophet Hosea. Gomar wasn’t a nice, sweet hooker like Satine or Vivianne (Pretty Woman) who fell into the trap of prostitution to survive. She was kinda nasty. Her biblical portrait is not pretty. And even after Hosea marries her, rescuing her from a life of misery, she falls back into the trap. She leaves her husband, sells her body and winds up a slave. And what does Hosea do? What the Lord advises: “Go and love your wife again.” So Hosea writes in chapter 3 of his self-titled book, “So I bought her back.” The study section of my bible says this: “No matter how low we sink, God is willing to buy us back – to redeem us – to lift us up again.”

Now that’s something worth living for. In Jeremiah 31:3, God says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; with unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.” As Moulin Rouge states many times, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”