A while back, we decided to read the unabridged version of Les Mis. I got it and read and read and read and barely made a dent in the epic work. But I did discover more depth in the pre story of how Jean Val Jean got to where he was and I’ve been thinking a lot about the story ever since… In the story, a guy named Jean ValJean is a young man and steals a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children. He is caught and put in jail for 5 years. He tries to escape and is caught and given an additional 14 years in prison. After 19 years of brutally horrible imprisonment, he is released as a parolle with no hope. No one will hire him. It is winter. He is freezing and starving. He is found by a Catholic bishop who invites him in for dinner and a place to sleep out of the cold. Jean is almost out of his mind with hunger and ravenously eats. That night, out of desperation, lack of hope and fear, Jean steals the Priest’s silver and sets of into the night. He is quickly caught and violently returned to the bishop by a pompous officer wanting praise for returning a criminal and his loot. When the bishop sees Jean, he has compassion on him and extends to him 2 things: Mercy and Grace. In the Les Mis musical the Bishop tells Jean,
I love when I find such a strong testimony of Christ and his purpose in the most unlikely places. Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables in 1862 in France. Truth is truth no matter where it is found. All things testify of Christ if we look closely. Sometimes we can't see the truth at first glance or first read... often for me, it is not till much later that I can see God’s hand in something. I think that is probably what the temple is like too. We are there and see and hear over and over again and then one day it is there! We see it. A piece of truth we never noticed before. Something that testifies to our soul in a way it couldn’t have until we were prepared to see it.
So thank you book club ladies for choosing a book I needed to read to understand a concept that I thought I already understood. There's nothing like a new book to open your eyes.
But my friend you left so early
Surely something slipped your mind.
You forgot… I gave these (his candlesticks) also;
Would you leave the best behind?
So messieurs, release him
This man has spoken true.
I commend you for your duty
And God's blessing go with you.
Mercy - Avoiding a punishment that you DO deserve.
Grace - Receiving a blessing that you do NOT deserve.
The bishop gave Jean both. He allowed him to avoid the punishment of the rest of his life in prison (which was the penalty for stealing again). And he gave him the blessing of the rest of his silver though he clearly didn’t deserve it. But the bishop didn’t do this just for fun - he had a reason. The bishop says,
But remember this, my brother,
See in this some higher plan.
You must use this precious silver
To become an honest man.
By the witness of the martyrs,
By the passion and the blood,
God has raised you out of darkness:
I have saved your soul for God.
When I thought about this whole scene, I thought of how much it is like us and Christ. Just as the bishop allowed Jean ValJean to avoid a punishment that he DID deserve (going back to jail for stealing), Christ allows us to avoid punishment for our sins by allowing us to repent and he will pay the price for them.
Just as the bishop gave Jean ValJean a blessing he did NOT deserve (the silver), Christ gives us the gift of salvation even though we could never be worthy of it. Even if we worked 24 hours a day, every day, our efforts still wouldn’t be enough…
Just as the bishop bought (redeemed) Jean ValJean’s life with the price of his silver, Christ has bought us (redeemed us) with the price of his life. I’m not sure why I never saw this correlation before (I’ve read the book and seen the play several times!) but I’ve been studying a lot about Grace lately and the meaning and symbolism of this scene really hit home.
Jean didn’t earn the bishops grace & mercy. We don’t EARN mercy and grace. They are free gifts. It is merely our choice to act upon them….or not. Jean ValJean could have carried on being a thief just like we can continue on in sin and worldliness. Or we (like Jean ValJean) can recognize the amazing gift/opportunity that has been given to us.
He had to start over and choose to accept what the bishop had given him. That made me wonder, What saves? What saved Jean? Was it his worthiness? No.
What saves us? Is it our worthiness? Is it our acts? Going to church every week? Reading our scriptures, Serving missions? Taking the sacrament?
No. It is the benevolent gift of our Savior. We can never be worthy of his mercy or grace, yet he gives it anyway. It is thru him we are given the opportunity to hold on to what we have already been given - the opportunity for Salvation. We must react to that gift. Embrace it. Let it change us. Dedicate ourselves to following Christ.
Salvation only comes thru Christ:
2N 2:3 ….Wherefore, I know that thou art redeemed, because of the righteousness of thy Redeemer
2N 10: 24 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.
2N 2: 8 …there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah
Moroni 6:4 …relying alone upon the merits of Christ
Alma 22:14 And since man had fallen he could not merit anything of himself; but the sufferings and death of Christ atone for their sins
I love what Jean ValJean say when he leaves the bishop and the reality of what has just happened sinks in. These words are awesome…
What have I done,
Sweet Jesus, what have I done?
Become a thief in the night
Become a dog on the run
And have I fallen so far
And as the hour so late
That nothing remains but the cry of my hate
The cries in the dark that nobody hears
Here where I stand at the turning of the years
(He recognizes that he is so unworthy, so far astray. Just like us…)
If there's another way to go
I missed it twenty long years ago
My life was a war that could never be won
They gave me a number and they murdered Valjean
When they chained me and left me for dead
Just for stealing a mouthful of bread
(He questions and justifies who he has become. We all have reasons we are not who we should be or wish we could be or know that we can become. But he has a choice to make - we all do. Do we allow Christ to touch us? Teach us love? Give us truth? Call us brother/sister? Claim us for God? Is it all really possible? Can he/we shake the life we have known for something better?)
Yet why did I allow this man
to touch my soul and teach me love?
He treated me like any other
He gave me his trust
He called me brother
My life he claims for God above
Can such things be?
For I had come to hate the world
This world that always hated me
Take an eye for an eye
Turn your heart into stone
This is all I have lived for
This is all I have known
He realizes the gravity of his situation in a new way. Terror strikes him at what he was headed for. He feels shame and remorse.
One word from him and I'd be back
beneath the lash, upon the rack (the rack was a torture device in the 1800’s)
Instead he offers me my freedom
I feel my shame inside me like a knife
He is touched by the strength of the Bishops faith. But has so little himself that he can hardly believe him.
He told me that I have a soul
How does he know?
What spirit comes to move my life
Is there another way to go?
(He realizes there is more to know than what he knows. I know there is SO much more than we know…. To know we must fall. Fall away from sin and begin anew in Christ.)
I am reaching, but I fall
and the night is closing in
As I stare into the void
to the whirlpool of my sin
I'll escape now from that world
From the world of Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean is nothing now
Another story must begin!
So thank you book club ladies for choosing a book I needed to read to understand a concept that I thought I already understood. There's nothing like a new book to open your eyes.
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