This is the last blog entry about the qualities that Mel Gibson's character, Nick Marshall, shares with Jesus.
Nick initiates reconciliation with his somewhat hostile, 15-year-old daughter Alex. Their relationship had already been strained, to say the least. He had been divorced from his wife and absent from his daughter’s life. Having been self-absorbed, he was completely out of touch with what was important to her. Once he had begun to hear her thoughts, however, he started to make changes in the way he conducted himself in his relationship with her. She had started to trust him, likely for the first time.
Because he had overheard her thoughts; he was aware that she was planning to surrender her virginity to her 18-year-old boyfriend after his prom.
On the night of the prom, after interceding to get Darcy her job back and intervening to save Erin from self-destruction, Nick gets a call from Alex, who is obviously in tears. Nick immediately rushes to find her. He finds her locked in a bathroom stall at the Prom venue. He sits down in the stall next to hers and listens as she cries her eyes out.
She confesses the whole story about planning to sleep with her boyfriend. But, much to Nick’s relief, she indicates that she had changed her mind about her earlier decision to compromise her purity. The tears, he learns, are because her boyfriend dumped her.
Nick’s reaction to Alex is an accurate picture of how Jesus reacts to us when we turn to Him. He doesn’t judge or condemn her, or say, ‘I told you so’. He praises her for what she did right. Nick chooses to focus on the positive and overlook her earlier lapse in judgment. He re-affirms her worth, and spends as much time as it takes to comfort her, encourage her, and finally to draw her into his embrace.
As we watch this scene we know it is only right that Nick initiate reconciliation with his daughter. After all, he had been an absent father, he had been emotionally detached, and he had been self-absorbed. He was the one who had damaged the relationship; he is the adult. It is right that he is the one to reach across the chasm and to win her over into a right relationship with him.
Conversely, if we are not in a right relationship with our Heavenly Father, it is not because He has been absent, emotionally detached or self-absorbed.
It is because we have been.
And yet, this incredible paradox exists – that He who has done no wrong seeks to make things right with us. Jesus is the one who initiates reconciliation with us.
Reader: Have you received Jesus' offer of reconciliation? Would you like to? Let me know...
I am praying for you.
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