We cannot escape the corruption of this world because we're part of it, and it's part of us. Yet the way to heaven is not closed because it depends entirely on God's mercy and grace, rather than being about how well we balance shrewdness and innocence, or about redeeming ourselves for our failures. That is the central point of the Christian faith: we cannot redeem ourselves; only God can do it through the death and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ.
Patrick cannot regain lost innocence, but he can be made clean. Interestingly, another statement from Patrick's opening voiceover echoes God's concern for human beings: 'I find the people who started in the cracks and then fell down.' In terms of our purity before God, we are all people who have started in the cracks and fallen down further: we all have a history of moral failure, of making choices because they further our self-interest rather than because they are right. And yet, even stronger than Patrick's desire to reunite lost children with their parents, God longs to rescue lost people and reunite us with him, the perfect parent.
This article was first published on Damaris' Culturewatch website (www.culturewatch.org) - used with permission.
© Copyright Tony Watkins (2008)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] A reference to Matthew 10:16.
