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"For God, unlike man, writes lessons not only in
words, but also in events."
Peter Kreeft
Insights:
Three Acts
All stories follow a similar
pattern. A situation is set up, then it is upset, and
finally it is reset.1
You can phrase this pattern in different ways, such as
setting, problem, and conflict resolved or as situation,
challenge, and response. The basic format of three
acts is there for a reason; for instance the Original Story,
the God Story, History (His Story) has three acts, phrased
as "Creation, Fall, and Redemption" or "generation,
degeneration, and regeneration", or "Paradise, Paradise
Lost, and Paradise Regained".
The film, The World Trade
Center, is a three act drama. It is a true story,
not because it is about "real people" or "real events".
It is true because it is based on the true story of God's
redeeming love. The story of the divine descent into
the rubble of a fallen world in search of lost men and
women.
Act One -
Life
The opening scenes of the
movie are filled with images of life and light.
Morning dawns and the light begins to push back the
darkness. The beginning of a new day - creation.
People awaken and begin to move toward the city.
Soon the streets are teeming with life. The tempo
of the music increases, and we catch the lyrics to a
Brooks and Dunn song2
".......sun coming up over New York City......promises
of the the Promised Land." There is beauty, and then the
date September 11, 2001.
Act Two -
Death
"Even though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for
Thou art with me", so writes the Psalmist.3
The shadow of death is the shadow of the plane we see
coming ominously low over the city. After the
shadow passes we hear the great thud of the plane's
impact. This is more than a re-creation of the
plane hitting the tower. The film maker could
easily have shown actual footage, but that would have
rooted us in that moment in time. He chose instead
transcendent images. This is an image of evil of
the serpent striking, and the great thud is the fall of
mankind.
We see results of this too in
the images that follow: gray ash, paper rain, bodies
falling, shock, fear, blood, and tears. One man says,
"The world is coming to an end," and he is right in one
sense these are apocalyptic images:
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Water turning to blood
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Heavenly bodies falling from
the sky
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People covered with sores
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Gigantic locusts that attack
people
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Polluting the environment
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Hailstone "heavy as a
hundred weight" dropped from heaven
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Vanishing islands and
mountains
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The
Revelation
A older, black police
officer looks at the Rookie Jimeno and says with
assurance, "You'll be alright kid." He is the
prophetic voice that begins at the moment of the fall (Genesis
3:15). Yes, the serpent has struck a terrible
blow, but there is hope. One will come to undo
with love what evil did with hate.
All human towers to heaven
tumble, and all divine descents succeed.4
That is the message of the Bible, and it is the message
of The World Trade Center. The two men
trapped in the ruins of the tower are a picture of
fallen humanity. Lost in darkness unable to save
themselves with death creeping over their bodies, they
have two choices - give up, curse God and die or call on
the name of the Lord (Acts
2:21). The men do the latter in the powerful
moment of sheer panic when they cry out with the Lord's
Prayer.
God answers that cry as He
always does and comes for them. He comes
personally in Jimeno's vision of Jesus Christ the Living
Water (John
7:37-38). He comes in the vision of McLoughlin's
wife and her words of love. He comes in a Spirit
filled Christian who listens to His voice, puts on an
old uniform and follows where the Master leads. He comes
in the sacrifice of those who willingly lay down their
lives to go into the depths of darkness in order to
bring out the broken and dieing men.
Act Three
- Resurrection
The scenes of the removal of
the two men from the ruins are powerful and moving
because they are images of resurrection - life after
death. When McLoughlin is finally extricated from
the concrete rubble he has been buried under, his body
is passed through a rectangular opening designed to look
like a grave. He literally comes forth from the
grave out of what he himself called hell. He is
lifted by powerful hands; hands that have been broken
and bruised and pierced in order to set him free.
The joy, the happiness, the tears, the love are
indescribable because they are a glimpse of something
eternal. Every heart is touched because they are seeing
a heavenly homecoming (Ecclesiastes
3:11).
Act Four
- The Grand Restoration
In Christianity there is a
fourth act, and it is thought of as The Grand
Restoration. A time when all things will be made
new (Revelation
21:5). Death and the devil will have been
destroyed (Revelation
20:10,14) and life will get back on track to what
God intended before "The Fall". (Revelation
21:3)
In The World Trade Center
we see a glimpse of that joy at the Jimeno-McLoughlin
Thank You Barbeque. It is a time of celebration,
joy, reunion and remembering together the great battle
fought when the towers fell. A time to celebrate
with thanksgiving new life in all its beauty, especially
in a little girl named Olivia.5
Notes:
1. All the three
stages comes from Peter Kreeft - You Can
Understand the Bible", pg 7 and The God Who Loves
You, pg 114.
2. Only In America
3. Psalm 23
4. Dictionary of Biblical
Images - The Revelation
5. Peter Kreft - You
Can Understand the Bible, pg 21
6. Olivia means "Olive Tree".
In the Bible the Olive tree is a reference to God's
people (Romans 11:17-18)
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