Next Three Days – Love of God
I just saw (actually 4 days ago) the newest Russell Crowe movie ‘Next Three Days’. It is a intense thriller. After watching the movie I drove around the 40 mile 610 loop, among other things, reflecting on the movie and how it depicts the love of God.
In the movie, Russell Crowe’s wife gets arrested for a murder. She gets incarcerated because all evidence is against her. Russell is the only one who believes in her innocence. Incriminating evidence seals her doom. He vows to bring her out of prison. The wife, already suffering from a bit of inferiority complex goes into a self-destructive cycle. The more her tries to help, the more she resists and is spiteful. But still Russell perseveres believing in her innocence and tries to free her. She attempts suicide. He does not give up, he is at her bedside.
This is amazingly similar to the love of God. In the Bible, God relates with man in a Father-Son relationship. But there is another very important, but less talked about, facet which is the Groom-Bride relationship. God is the Husband, human being is His Bride. He loves His Bride with an everlasting love. Even when we are spiteful and angry and allow our feelings of insecurity and inferiority to destroy us, He never gives up on us. Even if we decide to give up on us and attempt suicide, He never gives up on us. No matter how much we resist His plans for our freedom, He’ll not give up on us.
The wife has accepted her doomed life in the prison. She then realizes that only way to get him off his pointless endeavor to free her is to lie to him that she committed the crime. She does that. He does not flinch. He trusts her so much that he reaffirms her worth. He says, “I will not allow this prison to become your home”.
The prison which the wife thinks has become her home, points to another metaphor in life - people thinking that living in chains is normal. Roussea said, "Man is born free, but every where he is in chains". Prison is bondage. Sin/hopelessness is bondage. Most people live in the prison of sin/faithlessness and think it is their home and that there is no hope for real freedom in life. They make a home of the prison of sin/hopelessness. But God does not want us to settle for a life of faithless bondage. Jesus Christ says, “I have come to show the Truth. I am the Truth and Truth shall set you free.”
In the movie, to redeem her, Russell stoops down to the point of becoming a criminal himself. Till the end she does not see her worth and tries to jeopardize his carefully laid plans for her freedom. But he keeps on loving her and trusting her to redeem her to himself and start a new life in a new home far off in distant shores.
In real life, God allowed His own Son (Jesus Christ) to be killed in order that through Him, no matter how much we self-destructively jeopardize His plans for our everlasting freedom, we will not succeed. His Truth will set us free, because He will not give upon us. He loves us as a trusting Husband loves His self-doubting wife. No matter how much we resist, He’ll make us find our freedom and journey to the new Home He has prepared for us a on the distant Shores where we’ll live as free people fully redeemed and happy in Him. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.(Rom 8:28-39).