Look Down or Look Away?

"I can't understand why anyone would want to go see that!" she said. "I agree the word "miserable" is right there in the title, for goodness sake." I was riding on a bus when this conversation was taking place around me. My grandson nudged me and asked, "Mimi isn't that your favorite movie?" The movie they were talking about was "Les Miserables"

Although I was drawn to the story in the movie I was not entertained by it. I was convicted by it! I saw a story of redemption, lives changed not by law but by grace. The question is continually asked in the movie, "Who am I?" The thief whose life has been changed by grace spends the rest of his life extending that grace to others. The one who believes his life has been raised from the gutter by keeping the law spends his life condemning those who have not kept the letter of the law. After watching the movie I was left with the question, "Who am I?"

One of the haunting songs in this movie is "Look down, look down, upon your fellow man. Look down, look down show mercy if you can." This is a for cry for mercy, a hand extended upward begging for help, desperate for grace. What is God's response to this plea from mankind? "Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH, To guide our feet into the way of peace."(Luke 1: 78) The Sunrise from on high looked down and took on human flesh and became a man of suffering and acquainted with grief. We hid our faces from him but He did not hide His face from us. Our cry for mercy was met with a nail pierced hand reaching out to extend grace.

I have received this mercy and known this grace. I have experienced God's eye's looking down on me. I have felt the grip of grace, now what? For years I have meditated on and prayed through the verse,  "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death." (Philippians 3:10) To "know Christ and the power of his resurrection" means that I have been baptized into Christ so that the life that I live now I live in the power of His Holy Spirit. But I must ask myself, "Have I become like Him in his death?" Am I willing to die to myself? Do I look at the world around me, those who are crying out, "Look down, look down, show mercy if you can!" with eyes of mercy of judgement?

Oh Lord Jesus, you showed me what it looked like to, "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." You taught me that I am not to look only to my own interest,  but also to the interest of others. You said to, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man."(Philippians 2:3-8) I confess I have failed to do this. Please forgive me for misrepresenting you. Please fill me now with Your Spirit so that I can see a hurting world through Your eyes of mercy and extend to others the grip of grace with has been extended to me.