Stranger Than Fiction

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.”
John 15:12 – 14

Yesterday evening Clemson Craig came over and we drank Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and watched Stranger Than Fiction. A little about this movie…

Will Ferrell plays an IRS auditor that begins to hear a woman’s voice describing what he is doing. This does not begin to worry him until the voice indicates that his death is imminent. Now he goes out in search for this voice which eventually leads him to the author. Once he finds the author he acquires the novel she is writing, reads it, and follows her story which would take him to his death. This upsets the author to no small avail and she changes the ending so Farrell’s character can live. Her response to the change in her ending when questioned by another is that it would be cruel to kill a man like this, one that would willingly walk to his death for a greater good*.

Here Farrell’s character, Mr. Click, was one that demonstrated the love Jesus is speaking of in John 15. He laid down his life to save another. He did so willingly so the author decided to let him live. Jesus did the same. For his friends, those that do as he commands them to love, he laid down his own life and three days later he was alive again. Redemption came in the movie for a person because Mr. Click was willing to love him by dying. Redemption comes to humanity because Jesus willingly died and his subsequent resurrection.

Movies like this are the types of movies I enjoy watching and reading. Stories where love is demonstrated for fellow men and women; stories where redemption can be seen.  These are the stories worth telling.  These stories give me hope that I can be better than I my current self.

* You’ll need to watch the movie to see this “greater good.” I can’t tell you everything.