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went and saw the prestige tonite. very cool. kinda sad. its the story of rival magicians trying to figure out each others tricks and the competition to be better than the other. i guess i could have just enjoyed it purely for entertainment value but you know me better than that dont you? mahoney is always telling me i over-analyze things and she may be right but i cant help recognizing themes. the prestige is a lot like how many people approach christ. theres quite a bit of conjuring. smoke and mirrors. abracadabra. and we wait for his applause. but its not coming bc hes not impressed. so instead of recognizing our own inability what do we do? we start launching comparisons. we are no hitler. no ben-laden. no dahmer. we are better than these evil twisted and sick individuals. its as if we think we can do something to impress god by being better than the next guy. as if he judges by comparing us with one another - rightly picking the better ones. if this is the case the vast majority of us can give up hope now. only the elite few - the billy graham and mother theresa types - get into heaven.
on the other side of this coin are those who have a come to jesus moment at some point and spend the rest of their life trying to do the best they can to stay in his good graces. pun intended. this notion is often coupled with or somehow complimented by the idea that god judges with a balance like lady liberty. good on one side bad on the other. if only we do enough good things to outweigh the bad things then we have a shot.
i havent spoken about grace at length with anyone for a long while. ive kept quiet bc it seems everytime i open my mouth about grace people nod their heads and agree and contradict its very essence in their next breath. i got tired and just stopped for a while. but this is burning a hole in me. the problem is we are going at this all bass-ackwards.
grace is not the reward for a job well done and its not the key that unlocks holy behavior patterns. its not like frequent flyer miles. we cant pave the streets of gold one hard earned brick at a time. its not the end result of democracy. grace is a blood soaked tree with god stuck on it naked. grace is a folded linen in a grave. these are not things we could ever do. ever. they have to be done for us. and that really seems to get under some peoples skin. a lot.
been taking the fam over to providence community church lately. this past sunday pastor mark discussed the parable of the sower in luke 8. four kinds of ground. one kind of seed. different results. got it. then he starts talking about grace. he doesnt use the word but thats what he was talking about bc he made very clear the difference between behavior modification and gospel transformation. and this is our problem.
behavior modification is all about changing the end result based on recognition of problem and application of such external stimuli as should or ought. in everyday terms - if you smoke you shouldnt bc its bad for you. this is how many people approach god. they are full of should. after all - god died for you so you should return the favor and do whats right. right?
but thats not grace. grace is not the ability to follow the 10 commandments. its the ability to live without them.
derek webb is a pissed off xian singer/songwriter. i dig him. on his latest release called mockingbirda new law. in the lyrics he says:
dont teach me how to live like a free man
just give me a new law
and this is what we think grace is. a gift to those who impress god by making the right choice or one that enables us to be good. its for those who recognize right and wrong and do what they should. this manifests in all sorts of ways – most notably in getting dressed up to go into gods presence. after all – we ought to dress up and be presentable to god right? hes got a song called this is a mockery of grace. god isnt impressed with clothes. never has been. its pretty clear in the book of james that those in the finest name-brands dont get any better treatment than ragamuffins. this is just some of the mendacity that masquerades as common sense gospel in the church today. but clothes – like all our efforts to impress god – fail completely. so how does any of this tie in with the movie? like this. the prestige takes its name from act iii of an illusion. ill let michael caines character explain: Every great magic trick consists of three acts. The first act is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary, but of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician makes his ordinary something do something extraordinary. Now if you're looking for the secret... you won't find it, that's why there's a third act called, "The Prestige". This is the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, and you see something shocking you've never seen before. and herein is the truth of grace. god made a pledge and showed us his son – who of course seemed pretty ordinary tho he wasnt. the turn is that his son did something extraordinary – he lived a perfect life. and thats where we keep looking for the secret but we wont find it. and so theres the prestige and lives hang in the balance as the son of god walks out of a tomb 3 days after being crucified. this is the deep magik. in the movie the 2 main characters played by christian bale and hugh jackman are endlessly trying to figure out how the other pulled off the trick. they chase each other around until they finally find out and it ends up costing them both. but with god the mystery is secure bc grace is not a trick. its real. it doesnt make sense and thats whats so great about it. its complete foolishness. it cant be figured out or diagramed or scientifically dissected. it can only be trusted or rejected. and this has nothing at all to do with our ability to impress god. it stands in staunch opposition to the very notion that anything is needed from our end. charles de gaule once said:
There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt. and this is part of whats so cool about god. he doesnt show us everything. he doesnt reveal it all – just enough. and just enough is all we need bc all we need is grace.
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