Today while I was out running errands I text messaged Jeff: “sushi + movie = date night”. Dombrows are out of town for the weekend and my parents decided to take Dutch to their house for a sleepover, and since Heidi is the easiest baby on earth and goes to sleep in her little closet at 7pm, that meant Jeff and me, alone in this great big house living it up like rock stars :-). I brought home $3 sushi from Winco (I know, extravagent), and splurged on a movie from blockbuster (usually we rent form the library) and even got wild and crazy with Moose Tracks ice cream from safeway. I told you, liviin’ it up like rock stars. Jeff ran upstairs and found the only blanket he could find which happened to be Dutch’s blue fleece with a life-sized Bob the Builder logo on it, and we curled up on the couch under Bob and Wendy and watched Seven Pounds. Wow.
I won’t give away all the details but the movie could basically be summed up in one phrase: A Life Given. What fasincates me is how our culture, or really all of humanity is fascinated by the idea of one giving his own life for the redemption, the life, the salvation of others. We are obsessed with it, with the profundity of such an idea. We are moved to tears by the utter selflessness of it all. We’re inspired. There is something in us that says, This is love.
And that is what Seven Pounds is about. I want to write so much more about it but don’t want to give it all away. It’s so fascinating that our culture and world will reject the idea of Christ’s substitutionary work of atonement on the cross, will reject the idea of redemption, and yet our hearts ache to watch movies like Seven Pounds, one given for the life of many.
The movie made me want to fall on my knees and worship our God, because even though the movie brought me to tears with the beauty of Tim Thomas’s sacrificial gift of life, but how much greater the gift of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For in the movie, Tim, acting as Ben, researches, calls, stalks those in need of organs, to be sure that they are “good people”. But what about Christ? Is His gift of life conditional? Scripture says,
“6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)
Christ’s substitution death on the cross wasn’t for seven. It wasn’t for those with kind dispositions. Christ died for all. He died for us while we were wicked. While we were helpless. While we were unloving.
And, just as the movie portrayed with Connie, the abused woman who refused help, Christ knocks on the door of our heart, seeks us out, reveals Himself to us…but doesn’t force us to receive His grace. Connie refused, because of fear. How could she trust this man she didn’t even know? But Tim’s card was left, and when she came to the end of herself, she called–and a new life was given.
Christ died for us! A healthy heart for ours that fails, new eyes that we can see, a mansion in glory for us to enjoy for all eternity. The beautiful part, however, is that Tim had to die forever that the others could live. But Jesus lives! He is the only one who could die a substitionary death and still rise, and still live, and still conquer sin and death once and for all.
Our right response? Fall on our knees and worship. Thank Him with every breath and every ounce of our being. He died that we might live. His life was given for ours. Thank You, Jesus.