Sometimes a View from Sinless Eyes

Sometimes A View From Sinless Eyes...

Last weekend I watched the movie Barry Lyndon, directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is based on the novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. It made me ashamed for being a part of the human race and overall left me feeling dirty. The main character Redmond Barry (aka Barry Lyndon) is an 18th century Irish youth who kills a British army officer in a duel for the woman he loves and is forced to flee his hometown. His character can be summed up in the line, "I'd sooner go to Hell than go to Dublin." What follows is a story of lying, cheating, infidelity, delusional pursuit of status, and all around selfishness. Barry is an opportunist who uses people and cirmcumstances to advance his status in life, going from a runaway to an enlisted man to an officer, and eventually to a gentleman.

However, his sins eventually catch up with him, and the movie leaves him a broken, poor, exiled man. Everyone around him also ends up ruined. However, the movie daftly avoids giving the viewer any real sense that justice was meeted out. The fact of the matter is, there are no characters in the movie who are worthy of justice. Barry's mother, though a poor widow, is ultimatly just a scheming, and self-serving miser. The characters Barry meets along the way are thieves, conivers, and flatterers. All of 18th century Europe is indicted on the charge of being trivial, opulent, and fake. The nobility live in great splendor and are surrounded by all the pleasures of life. But they are hiding behind powdered faces and wigs, performing services only to get ahead, marrying only for status, and spending all of their time in meaningless passtimes like playing cards (a central and particularly poignant motif in the film). Kubrick closes the movie with the pronouncement that all of these characters who strove for favor, wealth, and status in those days are now equal in the grave.

All of these events are portrayed against the breathtaking backdrop of Europe's landscape, art, and architecture, and set to classical music. The contrast is stark. This place has such great beauty, and history has painted it with a grand legacy, but its people were exceedingly hollow and ugly. The narrorator tells the tale as if it were one of significance, and as if the story were of a worthy subject. But ultimately, we find there was nothing noteworthy about Barry, save his exceedingly great wickedness.

Last night I was in a discussion about the incarnation, and this morning my mind traveled back to Barry Lyndon. The question arose of what it must have been like for the Son of God to not only lay aside the splendor of Heaven and become an insignificant man, but also to identify with a sinful people in his circumcision, baptism, and death. If simply watching the acts of others on screen can fill me with such disguist for being human, without even really taking stock in my own sinful character, what an absurd prospect it is for Christ to willingly become a man and die for a people which were as unlovely and sinfull as Redmond Barry.

This is great love, mercy, and glory that contrasts with and far overshadows the greatness of the evil that is displayed in Barry Lyndon. You see, Kubrick's Nihilsm only gets it half right. There is true morality and justice, and therefore true mercy, with God. When one considers that God, in His infinite wisdom, ordained all things in order to demonstrate His greatness in His Son through the redemption of His people, one should be filled with: 1. a sense of awe at who God is, 2. a humility and thankfulness for what He has done, and 3. a great sense of joy for being a part of that race of redeemed humanity.

Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day. Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.

But God will break you down forever; he will snatch and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying, See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!

But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever, because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.
- Psalm 52