Behold the Power of Grace

My list of top 5 favorite fiction is as follows:

1.  Les Miserables

2.  East of Eden

3.  To Kill a Mockingbird

4.  A Tale of Three Kings

5.  Sherlock Holmes Series

So as you may guess I really like the story of Les Miserables.  I have read the book, enjoyed the stage production, and just recently enjoyed the movie.  I enjoyed it so much that when I got home I listened to the soundtrack and I am now in the process of re-reading the book(s).  It is really a series of 5 books, but it is usually published just as one work.

I love the story because of 4 of the primary characters.  These characters demonstrate the power of grace and forgiveness so well.  So here is a synopsis of each and why I believe they teach important lessons.  (Some spoiler...but most of this is known and won't hurt if you have yet to either read the book or see the musical.)

1. The Priest Monseigneur Myriel -- He is a man that is in the musical very briefly.  However, his back story of some 50 pages is what begins the book.  He is a man that daily did his best to help the widow and the orphan.  He gave all that he had to help the poor and beat down when he could have lived a very comfortable life.   He is the man that shows Jean Valjean mercy and gives him a food and a warm bed for the night after being shut out by everyone else because of his past.  He then goes further in showing this man grace when Valjean is brought back by the police for stealing the silverware.  Instead, of pressing charges he tells them that they were a gift and gives him his silver candlestick holders as well.  He then bids him farewell after explaining the gospel and charging him to use the silver to become an honest man.

2.  Jean Valjean  -- He is a man that when faced with his sisters child starving to death attempts to steal bread.  For this he receives 5 years in prison.  He spends a total of 19 years in prison due to escape attempts.  He comes out hardend.  However, after being shown grace by the priest he changes his life.  He is able to understand what it means to love others because he understands the true love which is from Christ.  It wasn’t just a sermon but demonstrated.  The rest of his life is spent taking care of others like the priest who took care of him.

3.  Fantine  -- Here is a young woman that circumstances get the best of.  She falls in love with a man one summer and becomes pregnant.  Upon learning that she would bear him a child he abandons her.  She leaves the child with an innkeepers family to raise so that she can work to support her.  Fate shows her the door to unemployment unjustly.  So in an attempt to continue to provide for her child she sells her hair, her front two teeth and in the end becomes a prostitute.  All this is done out of the love for her daughter.  Valjean finds this poor wretch on the street and does not walk past her.  Instead, he takes pity on her.  On her death bed he promises to take care of her child and to watch over her as a father.  This woman at the end of her life learns grace.  She sees the face of God in Jean Valjean, for he showed pity and love to her when all others looked down on her in contempt and judgment.  He does what Jesus did for the woman caught in adultery.  He offers grace and hope.

4.  Inspector Javert – He is one of my favorite characters because he believes that he is on the side of justice and God.  He pursues Valjean after he breaks parole and never gives up the chase, even when the trail goes cold.  He believes that Valjean is a criminal that he cannot change who he is.  Javert believes that even the good that Valjean has shown in his life must be a sham.  It must be done for some ill-gotten gain that cannot be seen on the surface.  It is not until Valjean has the Javert at his mercy and is able to kill him that he truly sees the heart of the man he has been chasing.  Valjean frees him and informs him that after he has saved one last life he will meet Javert at the precinct and turn himself in for judgment.  Javert does not know how to handle grace.  He had lived a life of works.  He lived in a world of black and white with no space for any gray.  He cannot process this grace and forgivness and it sadly drives him to suicide.

I write about these characters to ask a few questions. 

1.     Are you in the place of Javert who doesn’t understand how to give or receive grace?  Do you read stories like the woman caught in adultery in John 8 and feel confused to how Jesus could show someone like that mercy?  Please do two things.  The first is re-read the Gospel of John and the second is please come talk with me.

2.     Are you in a place where you just need to feel the grace and mercy of Christ, but like Fantine all you feel is the weight of judgment placed on you by others?  If so come to Christ whose burden is light.  Also, please talk with me or another pastor and one of us will do what we can to help ease this burden and bring you closer to the hope, healing, and holiness that Jesus has to offer.

3.     Are you in the place of Valjean?  Do you understand that why you have sinned that there is grace and mercy to be found in Jesus the Christ?  If so, I implore you not to horde this gift which has been given to you but to share it with others that you come in contact with. (Matthew 5:14-16)

4.     Lastly, are you in a position like the priest?  Do have the title of pastor or elder?  Then my question is this, are you trying to ease the hurt and suffering of others in your congregation? Are you doing your best to shepherd them or are you allowing them go their own direction aimlessly while taking from them more than you should?

These are just a few things that I take from this book.  They are a few lessons that I take from this story that I also see in God’s word.  So if you are interested read the book.  I leave you the brief preface from the book.

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, son long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Hauteville House, 1862