Image of God



Heston as Moses



 God is all-powerful, all-seeing and the creator of everything.  But He’s accessible to people, wants to give them individual support and desires to be as close to you as your actual father. He’s also the hard-nosed judge who’ll determine where you spend eternity. Millions know Him intimately but nobody can confidently visualize Him.

There have been stabs at it, like George Burns in Oh, God and Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty. These comedies put a contemporary spin on Him, unlike one director who tried to remain true to the Bible.

Legendary film director Cecil B.DeMille had a prolific, successful career that made him a film industry icon.  He was raised in a devout family and was a life-long Christian. He moved to Los Angeles where he rarely attended church but never gave up his faith.

His faith showed in films like The Godless Girl that was critical of a girl who rejected God. DeMille was thrilled when the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism protested it.

His best known production may be The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston as Moses. DeMille felt the hardest part of the production – in a film that required massive sets and 8,000 people – was deciding on the voice of God. When God first spoke to Moses, DeMille used Heston’s recorded voice, which he slowed down and deepened. The idea was to evoke Moses’s father’s voice, thinking God may have actually done this to make it more familiar and less frightening to Moses.

DeMille changed his mind later when God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. The director used the voice of a friend instead and didn’t even list his name in the credits out of reverence for God.

Moviegoers associated Heston with Moses from then on, but this image glossed over Moses’s personal challenge. The man God chose to lead Israel struggled with a speech impediment. This wasn’t important to God and His attitude should be inspiring to stutterers, who constantly work to control their speech. In fairness to DeMille, it probably would’ve been awkward to address this in the context of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Hollywood has taken artistic license (to put it mildly) in the Burns and Freeman films.  Sometimes they teach valid lessons, like a scene where Bruce grants everyone’s prayer requests, only to find out they all prayed to win the lottery - which then paid pennies to each winner. It’s a great illustration of why God’s answering all prayers is unworkable. But God’s majesty is sacrificed and it’s hard to imagine either Burns or Freeman parting the Red Sea.

How can we get a handle on this? Try Jesus. He is God, in a form we can relate to. His presence here, in a man's body,  is part of God’s genius in reaching out and helping us to have a personal relationship with Him.

Think about it. You can’t “see” God the Father, but I’ll bet you can instantly envision Jesus and easily sense His comfort, love and holiness.

Dr. Death

Dr. Jack Kevorkian

Janet Adkins reclined in the back of a rusted 1968 Volkswagen van with a man she had recently met. Her companion plugged in an EKG machine and set up a “suicide machine” made from parts bought at flea markets. He inserted an IV and directed her to push a button that released thiopental, inducing unconsciousness. Then the machine automatically switched to potassium chloride, causing cardiac arrest and death.

When the EKG flatlined, Dr. Jack Kevorkian called police and told them what he had done. Within 24 hours the gaunt, cadaverous looking doctor was a household name.

His appearance was fitting. One hospital terminated his residency after he suggested using death row inmates for medical experimentation. At the next he raced to dying patients, taped their eyes open and photographed their corneas at the moment they died; co-workers nicknamed him “Dr. Death.” His reputation eventually shut him out of hospital positions.

He assisted 130 suicides, at least 70% of whom weren’t dying and 5 who weren’t even ill. His hobby put him in prison for almost 10 years. Another pastime, painting, revealed a macabre obsession with death. Surreal severed heads were a favorite motif.

Kevorkian had big ideas. His book Prescription Medicide – The Goodness of Planned Death promoted the establishment of “obitoriums” where people would go to die. Doctors were to anesthetize patients and do experiments on their living brains and spinal cords before euthanizing them. Legalization of euthanasia was needed to enable Dr. Jack to perform human vivisection.

Is it surprising he didn’t believe in God? His actions could happen only if God was rejected. Kevorkian obscured his contempt for life by portraying himself as a purveyor of mercy. This worked because there are cases where assisted suicide seems justified.

What’s a Christian to think? Suicide is self-murder and is against the will of God. This standard recognizes that life can be really tough but our self-worth is enhanced by gutting out difficulties and surviving as stronger, more faithful people. The strength it reveals is respected by others and makes a statement about the power of God.

Besides, suicide leaves survivors feeling guilt, grief, helplessness and outrage while giving them tacit permission to follow suit, creating a recipe for intergenerational dysfunction. No wonder the Bible forbids it.

But shouldn’t the secular state allow it for those who don’t believe? Here’s the problem: governments tend to expand whatever they legalize. Before World War II the American eugenics movement – which sought to improve society by eliminating defective genes in the population – succeeded in legislating involuntary sterilization and prohibition of interracial marriage. American eugenicists also suggested lethally gassing those deemed to have inferior genes. In the end Hitler - who tracked U.S. eugenic legislation – massively implemented this and showed its horrific potential. State involvement in euthanasia puts us on a dangerous slippery slope.

Suicide is the one sin you can’t repent of. Anyone contemplating it needs spiritual support and counseling as a child of God, not the cold-blooded ministration of a Jack Kevorkian.

For a disturbing insight into Kevorkian’s psyche, see his art at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kevorkian/aboutk/art/war.html

Photo credit: Carlos Osario, Associated Press

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The Supernatural Bowl

David Tyree

David Tyree was a hero in Super Bowl XLII. His team, the New York Giants, was down 14-10 to the undefeated New England Patriots with less than a minute to go. Quarterback Eli Manning was swamped by defenders and barely got off a throw. Tyree was closely covered but leaped, pinned the ball to his helmet with one hand and fell to the ground – still in control. The catch set up the winning score seconds later.

It’s been called the best play in Super Bowl history and it put him in the spotlight.

Number 85 had a checkered past. He attended Syracuse University on a football scholarship and was a wild man: trysts, parties, drinking himself into blackouts. In his junior year he impregnated his girlfriend and showed up drunk for his son's birth.  He continued to be promiscuous, contracted an STD and transmitted it to his son's mother.

He was drafted by the Giants and named to an All-Rookie Team despite drinking, traffic accidents and fines levied by the coach for missing meetings and serial tardiness. To replace the money paid in fines he sold drugs and was thrown into jail. His out of control behavior got him temporarily committed to a hospital psychiatric ward.

Some hero.

The old David Tyree hasn’t been seen in years. He came to Christian faith, gave up his vices, married the mother of his child – with whom he’s had three more children - became a solid family man and continues to serve as a good example on and off the field. The new Tyree is the guy who made the catch.

I love this story partly because I’m a die-hard Giants fan. I grew up watching them in the early ‘60’s and still regard the former Boston Patriots as interlopers. Lots of people here in Western Massachusetts feel this way: the Giants are telecast from Connecticut and we watch them instead of  New England.

Picture the scenario: the Giants barely made the playoffs and had to play every game away. They beat Tampa Bay, barely hung on to beat the Cowboys and then won the NFC Championship in Green Bay - at night, with a -23 degree wind-chill, in overtime. The reward was a trip to the Super Bowl where they were supposed to be crushed by the invincible Patriots.

The New York press called it the Blue Miracle and Tyree thinks the name is apt. He believes the improbable events leading to his fame were designed to help him witness to others. He finds himself in venues and conversations that couldn’t have happened otherwise, and he uses them to share his Christian faith.

Try this: put on a helmet, have someone throw you a forty-yard pass, leap as high as you can, pin the round ball to your round hat with one hand and fall to the ground with a 220# defender hanging on your arm. If you maintain possession it’ll be a miracle.

Just ask David Tyree: it’s why he calls it the “Supernatural Bowl.”

To see the play go to
www.youtube.com/watch?v=27XeNefwABw


Photo Credit:  www.giants.com

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