John 1:1-18
Unexpected, Embodied Love
January 3, 2021 James Sledge
Even though I’ve not done much binging myself, I did do a little thinking about what really good movies I wouldn’t mind going back and watching again. I enjoy movies that a purely fun. I’ve seen Independence Day more times than I can count. But when I say really good movies, I’m speaking of ones that wrestled with some major issue, that were poignant, that moved me or troubled me in some way. Movies such as One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Lion King, To Kill a Mockingbird, Spotlight, and Saving Private Ryan, although I’m not sure I want to watch the Normandy landing part of that one again.
One movie that both moved and troubled me, perhaps because of its religious themes, was the 1995 film, Dead Man Walking. For those who never saw it, the movie revolves primarily around two characters, Matthew, a death row inmate played by Sean Penn, and Sister Helen, a nun played by Susan Sarandon. Matthew is despicable man with no sense of guilt for his crimes, no concern or sympathy for his victims. He is a walking poster-boy for the death penalty and seems to have absolutely no redeeming qualities.
Sister Helen is not blind to this. In fact she is quite repulsed by Matthew. Yet she feels compelled to keep coming to see him, to try and somehow reach him, to find the image of God somewhere underneath all the evil and hate and viciousness.
Matthew realizes Sister Helen’s religious motivations, and so he toys with her, seeing how much he can shock and infuriate her, testing the limits of her faith convictions. At times she considers not returning, but she always comes back.
Somewhere along the way, Sister Helen’s presence starts to become a comfort to Matthew. He’s not really sure why, but he misses her when she isn’t there. He’s upset when he is unable to see her for any length of time. At the same time he still mistreats her, and seems to try to drive her off. It is as if her presence brings him both comfort and pain.
Finally, the time comes for Matthew’s execution, and Sister Helen is there with him. He has grown to trust her, perhaps even to love her in a way. And as he is led into the execution chamber Sister Helen says to him, “Look. I want the last thing you see in this world to be a face of love. So you look at me when they do this thing. I’ll be the face of love for you.”
Dead Man Walking is about incarnation, the very thing described in the prologue of John’s gospel that I read just a few moments ago. The “Word” that always was, that created the earth, that “Word” was born a regular human baby, to an ordinary, working class family, under the most unimpressive circumstances. God, that invisible, infinite, unimaginable force or being, God and God’s love became human, became something people could see and touch and experience.
That is just what Sister Helen did for Matthew. She took something he had heard about in Sunday school as a child, or from his occasional encounter with religious folk, and made it real for him. He had heard about God’s love, but it was a bunch of hooey to him. It was stuff for sissies, for people without the strength and determination to take what they wanted. He had heard about God’s love, but he had never seen it, never felt it, never touched it.
And so we shouldn’t be surprised that Matthew did not recognize God’s love in Sister Helen at first. John’s gospel tells us that the same thing happened when God’s love was incarnate in Jesus. John says that Jesus was the light that shines in the darkness, but He was in the world and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.
The light is not always welcomed by those accustomed to darkness. The light changes our perspective, shows us things we haven’t seen before. It may even show us things that we’d rather not see. That was certainly true for Matthew, the death row inmate. The harsh glare of the light that came to him in Sister Helen was painful. It forced him to see, to see himself as he really was – a vicious, mean, hateful man who had committed horrible crimes and felt no remorse. He lashed out at Sister Helen, tried to push away the glare of the light. But …the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. Sister Helen did not leave when Matthew abused her. She did not turn away from him because of his hideousness.
At the end of the movie, there is hope for Matthew. There is hope because of the light. There is hope because God’s love had come to him in human form, in the person of Sister Helen. That is what incarnation is. And the Word became flesh and lived among us. In Jesus, God’s love for us became something that we can see and touch and feel.
That is why the church celebrates Christmas. We celebrate the arrival of incarnation, the arrival of God’s love in the flesh. We celebrate the fact that God came for our sakes, with no thought as to whether or not we deserved such love.
The gospel of John’s announcement of this incarnation is filled with symbolism, some of which we may miss. In it the term “world” is not a simple reference to the place we all live. “The world” is the arena opposed to God, and yet God so loved the world, just as Sister Helen loved Matthew and kept coming back to see him, comfort him, and offer him hope.
Because of God’s immense love, the Word is compelled to come to us, to come into the darkest corners of our lives. God’s love is there for us to see in Jesus, a love that comes even to those who at first reject it, a love that is willing to go through beatings and ridicule and even death on a cross in order to reach out to the most unworthy of sinners.
And the word became flesh and lived among us. That is cause for celebration – that God loved each of us that much. But the true proof of God’s love is not at the manger. It is at the cross. At the manger, God’s love in the flesh was revealed, was made known. But at the cross, the depths of God’s love is displayed for all to see. The cross is God’s love in action. The cross is the length to which God will go to break through the darkness of our lives that all may know the warm embrace of God’s love.
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In a moment, we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper. As we do we celebrate God’s love poured out for us. We celebrate a love a lot like Sister Helen’s, a love given to one who had no right to it expect it, a love offered even to those not looking for it. At the Lord’s table, that love is freely offered to each of us, not because we are lovable enough, but because God is so unbelievably loving. God’s love looks just like Jesus, and a lot like Sister Helen, and like us when the Spirit dwells in us and we truly become the body of Christ in and for the world.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Thanks be to God!
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