“Saving Private Ryan”
Yes, I’m trying to draw you in. Bear with me, please.
I was recollecting the movie “Saving Private Ryan.” If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it. Now, let me complain about it a little.
The first part of the movie shows the D-Day landing and all the horrors associated with it. Cinematically, it is great in that depiction. However, after seeing it and experiencing it once, I really have no desire to watch it again.
Similarly, there are many touching scenes embedded in much of the rest of the movie. But, none of them (save my last point) were extremely emotionally moving.
The final few minutes (caution – you may want to stop here if you haven’t seen the movie) are, to me, the most emotionally compelling scenes in the movie. An actor, whom I didn’t recognize from anything else, portrays the elderly Ryan going back to Normandy, now a cemetery. He falls on a grave and cries that he hopes his life has shown the sacrifices made were worth the cost. Even typing this, I’m crying. In his post-war life, he has striven to make those sacrifices count by living a good life.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” -John 3:16-21 ESV
This morning, I was driving and listening to the radio. A song came on about the singer looking forward to heaven and worshipping God. One of the verses recognizes the sacrifice Jesus made to forgive his sins and incorporate him as an heir to heaven. This is what made me think of those final scenes in “Saving Private Ryan.”
The week I’m writing this is Holy Week, and I look forward to celebrating Jesus defeating death and forgiving my sins. I also pray that I live my life in a way that respects that sacrifice (notice I didn’t say worthy).
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” - Romans 3:21-26
