Finding God in the Movies:  Uncommon Grace

By Jennifer Hall

Grace, by its very definition, is not a common thing in today’s world.  It’s giving someone what they don’t deserve.  It’s seeing beyond the problem to what that person needs.  It’s offering no ultimatums.  It’s when we get to that point where we realize grace is a gift from God because offering grace to another person goes beyond human nature.

While grace may be a hard thing to imagine in our society, it is a prominent theme in some of our most popular movies – from the fantasy story in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to the comedy in Bruce Almighty to the dramatic biography in Walk the Line.

In The Chronicles of Narnia the show of grace is when Aslan lays down his life for Edmund.  Grace isn’t shown more clearly than that – an almost identical representation of Christ’s crucifixion.  The greatest sacrifice anyone could make would be laying down his life for someone else.  But then to willingly give up his life when he’s done nothing wrong and the other person clearly deserves the punishment is an act of grace.  Edmund didn’t deserve to be saved.  He had not only betrayed his brother and sisters, but Aslan and the rest of the army.  Yet, even though he did all that and deserved to be given to the Witch as a sacrifice, Aslan saw the good in him.  He saw that Edmund really was sorry for what he’d done, knew he would never do it again, and saw the potential in what he could become.  Just like Christ, Aslan saw past the problem – Edmund’s betrayal – but he didn’t ignore it.

The symbol for grace isn’t always as clear as it is in The Chronicles of Narnia, but it’s still there.  For instance, in Bruce Almighty the embodiment of grace is in the character of Bruce’s girlfriend Grace (coincidence, I think not).  After Bruce got all the powers of being God, he used them for completely selfish reasons.  Despite all that he did, Grace still loved him.  Even though she didn’t approve of what he did, and she told him that, she cared very much for him.  It really isn’t until the end of the movie that we see why the writers gave Grace the name they did.  After Bruce sees Grace praying in her room, he stands out in the middle of the street, arms stretched toward Heaven, pleading to God and – BAM – he gets hit by a huge semi-truck.  The reason this is relevant to the subject of grace is because Grace gave her blood to save the sinner, to the man who caused her pain.  Just like Christ who gave His blood to save us all from eternal death, Grace gave her blood to save Bruce from his death.

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Finally, in Walk the Line June Carter is the symbol of grace in Johnny Cash’s messed up life.  When Johnny was at the lowest point in his life – he’s addicted to drugs, his wife just left him, and he’s on the path to losing his job – June didn’t condemn him.  That’s not saying she approved of what he did – she flushed his pills more than once, but she saw that he needed a friend, someone to lift him out of his depression.  Johnny had no one in his life believe in him until June came along.  She wasn’t perfect, not even close, but she showed him grace.  She confronted him on his problems, but she never condemned him.  She helped him get his life back on track because she loved him and saw his potential, not just as a performer, but as a person.

In all of these examples the characters that represented grace saw the potential in the person they saved.  They didn’t dismiss what the other had done, but they confronted and helped them out of their problems.  And that’s what grace is – seeing past the other person’s problem to who he or she really is.  It’s being a friend to someone who doesn’t have any.  It’s helping someone through a rough patch in their life.  Grace may seem like an easy act, but even for our Heavenly Father giving grace to a world of sinners was hard because He had to give His only son.  Grace may appear easy or it may appear difficult, but the rewards for giving grace are far greater than imagined.  As the characters in The Chronicles of Narnia, Bruce Almighty, and Walk the Line learned grace is a wonderful gift that forever changed people’s lives.  Therefore, take what these characters have learned and give a little grace to someone that looks like they might need a friend.

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Jennifer Hall graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor's degree in Theatre, Film and Television from Azusa Pacific University.