It's A Wonder

I was thinking the other day about the popular Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life. You know the story. George Bailey is your quintessential "everyman." He has dreams. He has plans. He's going to go places. He wants to build things, to do things. But ... life intervenes for George. At 12 he saves his brother from drowning and gets an infection in one ear. Later, saving the pharmacist from accidentally poisoning a customer, he gets hit and loses the hearing in that ear. He suspends his trip to see the world when his father dies suddenly and he has to manage the Building and Loan, at least until his brother can take over. Except his brother, who eventually saves a troopship by preventing a kamikaze attack, gets married and takes a job with his father-in-law's firm, so George once again sets his dreams aside for the people of Bedford Falls and the Building and Loan. George's life was a series of delayed gratification, canceled dreams, and setting aside his own desires for the benefit of so many others. His nemesis, Mr. Potter, was the opposite. Potter did what Potter wanted to gain power and wealth, and nothing but George Bailey got in his way. You remember the story. Billy loses some money, George is facing jail time, and decides he's better off dead. Heaven sends an angel who shows George what it would have been like if he'd never been born. It's bleak. So George returns to face the music, and everything turns out okay.

The story today would look radically different, wouldn't it? We tell our children "Dream big" and "Don't let anyone get in the way of your dreams" and "Be true to yourself." We declare that the ultimate good is you be you -- you love you. Overlay our modern ethic against It's a Wonderful Life, and George would be the loser. He gave up all that stuff when he should have never jumped in after his brother, never interfered with Mr. Gower, never stayed on at the Building and Loan. George failed at every turn to pursue his own dreams and take care of himself first. Loser. Then there's Mr. Potter. Now there's a hero of modern values. He did what he wanted, gained what he wanted, pursued what he wanted. He didn't let anyone get in his way. If it wasn't for the fact that we still hold rich people in low regard, Potter would have been today's hero in that movie.

Christ set self aside to clothe Himself in flesh, live a perfect life, and die for our sins. He asks us today to follow Him. His path of taking up a cross and following Him (Matt 10: 38-39) flies in the face of modern ethics even more than George Bailey did. Is it possible, then, that our society's view of taking care of #1 first is not God's view? We who call ourselves Christians -- Christ followers -- probably should not be living lives whose values come from the world, but from the One whose name we bear. And that's a life lived outwardly -- giving self up -- rather than one lived for ourselves. Very strange by today's standards.