June 17, 2014
Dear St. Paul’s Family,
As many of you may have heard, the Cherokee Community
Theater is preparing a blockbuster presentation of the acclaimed musical Les Miserables. In many ways, it will be grander in scale and
more epic in scope than anything many of us have seen out of our community
theater. The vocals, live orchestra,
acting, set pieces, lighting, and costuming are all amazing, coming together
for an opening night this Thursday after many long months of preparation. If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet for
one of eight performances over the next two weekends, do so by calling the box
office at 225-4440 or online at cherokeect.org.
I’m encouraging you to see it not just because I and the
girls are part of this tremendous cast and crew, but also because, as your
pastor, I believe the story is replete with theological reflections on the
nature and richness of God’s grace. The
story of Jean Valjean, the protagonist of the story, covers the last eighteen
of his sixty-five year old life, in which he goes from ex-convict, to wealthy
business man, to town mayor, to soldier in the Paris uprising of 1832.
But at a deeper level, the life of Jean Valjean (portrayed
splendidly by my friend and Presbyterian minister Ethan Sayler) is a beautiful
portrayal of the lifelong work of God’s grace, understood by Wesleyan
Christians as “the stages of grace.”
PREVENIENT GRACE: “I have
bought your soul for God.”
He is, first of all, a recipient of prevenient grace,
evidenced by the remarkable mercy shown to him by Bishop Myriel (played by Dave
Zelle), who pardons him for the theft of the church’s silver pieces and
encourages him to use the silver to make a better man for himself. Despite his sinful past, and the hatred that
had begun to grip his cold heart, God never gave up on him, pursuing him
through the unexpected mercies granted to him by the Bishop.
JUSTIFYING GRACE: “Who Am
I?”
Still, Valjean continued to live a tortured, conflicted
life, concealing the shame of his past behind the façade of a wealthy business
owner and town mayor. It was in this
capacity that he unknowingly caused the firing and downward spiral of a poor
mother named Fantine, as well as the arrest and potential conviction of a man
wrongfully accused of being Valjean himself.
In one of the most powerful moments in the musical, Valjean searches
deep within himself, asking “Who am I?” and determines that he must come clean
before God and before others. It is a
remarkable moment of repentance, surrender, and confession, characterizing the
work of God’s justifying grace.
SANCTIFYING GRACE: “To
love another person is to see the face of God.”
As Wesleyans, we believe that while we are not saved by good works, we are saved for good works. And the remainder of the story essentially
chronicles Valjean’s best efforts to demonstrate care and compassion to those
around him. He rescues Fantine’s
daughter Cosette (played beautifully by Libby Peterson) from the treacherous
hands of her sniveling guardians, the Thenardiers. He vows to raise Cosette as his own child,
keeping her safe from harm. When Cosette
falls in love with a young man named Marius (played with stirring emotion by
Jaden Lux), Valjean risks his own life to save him from the lost battle at the
barricade. And finally, when given the
opportunity to exact revenge by killing the town’s inspector Javert (played by
Ryan Brown), who had been hunting him down for seventeen years, Valjean chooses
to spare his life. It is an
extraordinary series of events for a man who completed his journey from
bitterness to beneficence, from cold-hearted criminal to conduit of
compassion. In short, it is a powerful
story of a life transformed by the ongoing grace of God which, as my friend Jim
Harnish likes to say, “loves us enough to meet us where we are, but loves us
too much to leave us there.”
I would encourage you to see the production of Les Miserables yourself. The girls and I have had a wonderful time
being part of such an amazing production.
(Incidentally, the girls play town beggars, while I play a prisoner and
gang member. Plus, I get to dance again
on stage near the end … always worth the price of admission for the sheer
spectacle of it!) Most of all, I hope
you will watch it in order to be swept into such a great example of what the grace
of God can do in even the most seemingly irredeemable life.
In other words, I hope you come to find yourself in the
story. For surely, you will.
Grace and Peace,
Magrey
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