Going to the Movies

Unlike primitive deities, who demanded blood for their wrath to be appeased - extracting their revenge -the God of the Bible becomes human and offers his own life in order to destroy all evil - without destroying us.

And yet the Cross is much more than just a lovely example of sacrificial love. Furthermore, to die needlessly is wrong. Jesus’s death is only a good example if it was more than an example, if it was something absolutely necessary to rescue us. And it was.

Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid — God himself paid it. There was a penalty to be born— God himself bore it.

To make this clearer and for a change of pace, let’s go to the movies. In the film Angels with Dirty Faces, James Cagney plays Rocky Sullivan, a celebrity criminal who is the idol of all the juvenile delinquents in the city. Rocky is now on death row. The night before his execution he is visited by his boyhood friend, played by Pat O’Brien, now a priest trying to save inner-city kids from a life of crime.

Father Jerry makes an outrageous request believing it’s the only way the kids he is working with can be turned away from the destructive path they are on.  “I want you to let them down. You see, you’ve been a hero to these kids, all your life — and now you’re gonna be a glorified heroin death. Rocky, they’ve got to despise your memory. They’ve got to be ashamed of you.”  Rocky is incredulous.

To be continued…