The movie adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel Les Misérables (the miserable ones) is my all-time favorite movie. One reason is because it is a musical, where almost every conversation takes the form of a song, which is what I imagine our conversations in Heaven will be filled with, songs of joy and gladness extolling our great and glorious God. More importantly, the story is one of redemption. Although not written specifically from a Christian perspective, its narrative emphasizes the powerlessness of the law and its related penalties to transform our selfish, sinful hearts and the need of grace, ultimately God’s grace, to promote sincere repentance and bring about true transformation of our soul.
Though Les Misérables is the original French title, several alternative titles reportedly have been used over time including The Misérables, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, and The Wretched Poor. These are titles that represent the deplorable and oppressive conditions in which the French working class lived and labored almost as slaves under the post French Revolution aristocracy and royal rule. The story is set in the early 1800s when another revolt was fomenting among the people to take France back for the people, which will result in what is referred to historically as the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris.
Each of these titles would aptly describe the spiritual condition of the human race, as we live as spiritual paupers and slaves to sin, oppressed of the devil, void of spiritual life (Ephesians 2:1-3). We live as such because of our rebellion against the triune God who created us in His image and likeness to share in His glorious existence and to enjoy His infinite goodness, not as the divine equals which we have sought to be, but as beloved children, trusting in the unfailing love of a kind and gracious Heavenly father.
The main character in Les Misérables is a man named Jean Valjean, a peasant just released from 19 years’ imprisonment, five for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving sister and her family and fourteen more for numerous escape attempts. He receives a yellow parole passport identifying him as a “Dangerous Man”, a paper and identity that he must carry with him the rest of his life or be returned to prison for life. He leaves prison a man filled with hatred and bitterness for the extreme penalty and body/soul crushing cruelty he had received from those who represented “the law”.
That hatred and bitterness only grow, as he is refused employment and turned away by innkeepers because his yellow parole passport marks him as untrustworthy, a “dangerous man”. He sleeps on the street, scavenging for survival, angry, desperate and hopeless. After several months drifting around France, he is found one night sleeping near a cathedral where resides the Bishop of Digne, who invites him in and graciously provides him food and shelter, treating him as an honored guest.
During the night, Valjean steals all of the cathedral’s silver and flees into the darkness. He is caught shortly after by the authorities – the law. However, the Bishop assures them that the silver was given as a gift, and that Valjean had left behind the most valuable of what was given. In doing so he secures Valjean’s release. In the movie, the Bishop speaks (sings) to Valjean of his motive for doing so:
“But remember this my brother, see in this some higher plan, you must use this precious silver to become an honest man. By the witness of the martyrs, by the Passion and the Blood, God has brought you out of darkness, I have bought your soul for God!”
In the song that follows this event (Valjean’s Soliloquy), we hear Valjean coming to his senses, recognizing both the evil of the world around him and in his heart. No longer wanting to be identified with either and moved in his heart by the Bishop’s love, grace and generosity, Valjean vows to start an honest life under a new identity, tearing up the yellow parole paper that up to that moment defined him as a “dangerous man”. He goes on to live a life consistent with his new identity, a life of grace and humility, a blessing and benefit to those whose lives he touches, but always needing to stay one step ahead of the “law”. He even becomes the esteemed mayor of a small industrial city. When Valjean comes to a crisis where his new identity will be tested in a way that could cost him his freedom, even his life, he affirms through a song titled, Who am I?, that his life now belongs to God and the outcome of his faithfulness to the truth, both in this instance and throughout His life, was in God’s hands. (To find out how this all plays out you will have to watch the movie).
If we are Christians, our lives also belong to God, and we are to live with this same heart attitude throughout our lives (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Who we were and who we are now, in Christ, are defined for us not by our experience, but by God’s word. We were cosmic criminals whose offenses were infinitely more serious than Jean Valjean’s stolen loaf of bread and violation of parole. We were guilty of treason, rebels against our creator, the Sovereign King of the universe, the eternal God; men and women who had joined our identities to His chief enemy, Satan, in opposition to His rule over our lives, bringing corruption and destruction into His good and glorious creation.
We were justly due a penalty far more horrific than that found in the cruel and inhumane treatment one would experience in a 17th Century French prison; and it would not be of short duration, but eternal.
We are now, however, the beneficiaries of an infinitely more costly redemption in which the forgiveness we receive is not for one, two or a few misdemeanor offenses against a somewhat corrupt civil government, but for innumerable capital crimes willfully perpetrated against a Holy and Righteous God, in which we have wronged Him in every way a creature can wrong their creator (Ephesians 1:7).
The price of that redemption was the precious blood of the one whom John the Baptist identified as the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, God the Son (John 1:29), who came into this sin condemned world as a man, that through His sinless life, sacrificial death on the cross, and miraculous resurrection, would deliver all who entrusted their lives to him from our lawless deeds and restore to Himself a people for whom knowing, loving and being loved by Him would be their all-consuming passion, both in this world and in the ages to come (1 Peter 1:18-20) (Titus 2:13-14) .
To this end, God brings us to our senses to see the evil of the world around us and within our own hearts and grants us the gift of repentance (2 Timothy 2:24-25), turning us from a self-centered life to a God-centered life where He becomes the desire of our heart and the delight of our soul, the object of our deepest love and source of our greatest joy (2 Corinthians 5:15) (1 John 4:19).
Not only are our sins forgiven and paid for, but we are also given a whole new life, a whole new identity in union with Jesus, a spiritual rebirth, wherein our sinful past no longer defines us. This new identity is not a result of self-reformation or resolution but of regeneration, with God doing a supernatural work in our hearts creating new desires, new longings, new affections and new motivations that are centered on Him (2 Corinthians 5:17-18) (Titus 3:4-7).
Thus, in Christ, I (and you) can joyfully and confidently answer the question Who Am I? as follows:
I am one who has been adopted by God as His beloved child (Romans 8:15), translated out of the condemned kingdom of darkness, where my heart, mind, and life had been ruled by the god of this world and its lusts, into the eternal kingdom of His Son, our Savior, wherein I will be both a welcomed citizen and joint heir with Jesus in the rule of that Kingdom (Colossians 1:13) (Philippians 3:20) (Romans 8:17).
I am one who has graciously been given the righteous nature and character of my Lord and am being transformed more and more into His glorious image and likeness by the indwelling Holy Spirit, wherein God is working everything in my life toward that end, with that transformation being completed on the day that I see Him, either at my death or His second coming (2 Corinthians 5:21) (2 Corinthians 3:18) (Romans 8:28-29) (1 John 3:1-3).
Thus I no longer live this life for myself, but with my heart and mind set on pleasing, honoring and glorifying the one who loved me and gave Himself for me, my Lord Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:15) (Galatians 2:20).
Halleluiah, what a Savior!!