A Death Wish (12 of 14)
Series: Focus on Your Family
Keith Krell
John 17:1-5
Death Wish! What a great title for an action movie. (I wish I had come up with it!) Charles Bronson starred in the original Death Wish back in 1974. Bronson played Paul Kersey, a man who becomes a vigilante after his wife is murdered and his daughter is assaulted. Death Wish was a huge success and generated a movie franchise lasting four sequels, spread over a twenty year period. Bronson starred in Death Wish 1 at age fifty-three, and capped off Death Wish 5 at the ripe, young age of seventy-three. Obviously, this made for a rather unusual action hero. In Death Wish 2, a sixty-year old Bronson has a gun pointed at a criminal and utters this classic one-liner: "Do you believe in Jesus?" The criminal frantically assures Bronson that he does. Bronson then replies, "Well, you're about to meet Him." (I won't tell you what happens next, but I'm sure you can figure it out.) Death Wish became a subject of parody for its over-the-top violence and the advancing age of Bronson. An episode of The Simpsons showed a fictional ad for Death Wish 9 consisting of a bed-ridden Bronson saying, "I wish I was dead." While this spoof was amusing, it exposes the futility of personal retaliation and vindication.
I think the Death Wish movies epitomize the heart of our society. Our human tendency is to exclaim, "What goes around comes around. If you mess with me; I'm going to mess with you." If someone takes something or someone away from us, we feel the irresistible urge to take matters into our own hands. After all, we need to avenge and vindicate ourselves. The underlying motive behind this type of thinking is a quest for our own glory. This is in direct contrast to Jesus Christ, who was driven by a desire to turn the other cheek, forgive wicked sinners, and glorify God. Instead of giving in to His own desires, Jesus lived for God's glory alone. You could say His motto was, "No guts, no glory."
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Series: Focus on Your Family
Keith Krell
John 17:1-5
Death Wish! What a great title for an action movie. (I wish I had come up with it!) Charles Bronson starred in the original Death Wish back in 1974. Bronson played Paul Kersey, a man who becomes a vigilante after his wife is murdered and his daughter is assaulted. Death Wish was a huge success and generated a movie franchise lasting four sequels, spread over a twenty year period. Bronson starred in Death Wish 1 at age fifty-three, and capped off Death Wish 5 at the ripe, young age of seventy-three. Obviously, this made for a rather unusual action hero. In Death Wish 2, a sixty-year old Bronson has a gun pointed at a criminal and utters this classic one-liner: "Do you believe in Jesus?" The criminal frantically assures Bronson that he does. Bronson then replies, "Well, you're about to meet Him." (I won't tell you what happens next, but I'm sure you can figure it out.) Death Wish became a subject of parody for its over-the-top violence and the advancing age of Bronson. An episode of The Simpsons showed a fictional ad for Death Wish 9 consisting of a bed-ridden Bronson saying, "I wish I was dead." While this spoof was amusing, it exposes the futility of personal retaliation and vindication.
I think the Death Wish movies epitomize the heart of our society. Our human tendency is to exclaim, "What goes around comes around. If you mess with me; I'm going to mess with you." If someone takes something or someone away from us, we feel the irresistible urge to take matters into our own hands. After all, we need to avenge and vindicate ourselves. The underlying motive behind this type of thinking is a quest for our own glory. This is in direct contrast to Jesus Christ, who was driven by a desire to turn the other cheek, forgive wicked sinners, and glorify God. Instead of giving in to His own desires, Jesus lived for God's glory alone. You could say His motto was, "No guts, no glory."
...
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