Never Too Late
By Jack Wyman
The happy music and conversation in the background was oblivious to the painful desperation of one man.
He sat alone at the bar. He raised his hands to his anguished and weary face. Tears filled his eyes. He bowed his head and with a whispering intensity, struggled through a simple, heartfelt prayer.
“Dear Father in heaven. I’m not a praying man, but if you’re up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope. Show me the way God.”
It is one of the most powerful scenes in the movie that has become a Christmas icon. James Stewart, who played George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, performed that riveting close-up in just one take. In that brief single moment of film history, no viewer is left unmoved.
We watch an incredibly good, amiable, and decent man quickly spiral downward into a strangle-hold of hopelessness and despair. The crisis of a missing $8,000, misplaced by George’s hapless Uncle Billy and literally falling into the hands of the evil Mr. Potter, has turned George’s well-ordered and pleasant life into a virtual nightmare.
In many important ways, It’s a Wonderful Life is a very spiritual film. It embraces prayer, goodness, generosity, family, self-denial, and sacrifice—and wraps them all up in the supernatural appointment of a kind, humble but naively bumbling guardian angel named Clarence.
The climax and moral of the movie take place on Christmas Eve.
When George, out of options, contemplates suicide (“He’s about to throw away God’s greatest gift” says an angel in heaven), God shows up—in the same improbable way he did on that first Christmas Eve. God will use Clarence to save George’s life, although Clarence still hasn’t earned his wings.
George gets his rueful wish—never to have been born—and Clarence gives him a shattering tour of what that alternative reality would have been like. When George begins to grasp the folly of such a wish, Clarence closes the lesson: “You see, George, you’ve really had a wonderful life. Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?”
Like each of us, George Bailey’s life touched, blessed and helped so many others. He just had to see it. Like his prayer at the bar, which God answered, George’s second prayer is also desperate—and equally simple and profound:
“Help me, Clarence! Get me back! Please! Please! I want to live again! I want to live again! I want to live again!” Bowing his head and softly weeping, George prays: “Please God, let me live again.”
The snow begins to fall. George is back, overjoyed at a new lease on his wonderful life. Clarence gets his wings. George Bailey lives again. The movie that reminds us of what truly matters ends with rejoicing neighbors singing Christmas hymns at the Bailey home.
Ebeneezer Scrooge had a similar epiphany—though the circumstances differ. Like the film, the classic 1843 novella by Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, has remained a season staple. It’s the story of a selfish, mean, greedy, and heartless miser who is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve.
By the dawn of Christmas Day, Mr. Scrooge is a transformed man. He has been taught the true meaning of life, the value of kindness and compassion—and the importance of Christmas.
His cold heart has been melted, his outlook broadened, and his bitter cynicism dissolved in joyous celebration of a generous and thankful spirit. Like a school boy at the start of summer, Scrooge rejoices that he’s still alive. He is overwhelmed by the wondrous miracle of it all.
Redemption.
Christmas pulsates with it. It’s the high note of the Advent season. Christmas is about change, transformation, renewal and restoration. It’s about hope. It’s about the discovery of joy and purpose. It’s about new beginnings and fresh starts. It’s about reconciliation, forgiveness, and healing.
“If any man be in Christ,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come” (II Corinthians 5:17).
The King James Version rings out the proclamation and the promise in categorical words that would bring smiles to Ebeneezer Scrooge and George Bailey:
“Old things have passed away. Behold, all things are become new.”
Zachariah, when his tongue was loosed and he was no longer mute, uttered prophetic praise. “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people. He has sent us a mighty Savior...” (Luke 1:68-69).
That mighty Savior, the King of kings, the God who came into the world he made through a manger in a stable, set about to bring life and light to a suffering humanity. He is our Redeemer. Redemption and newness of life are his eternal gifts to all who believe.
Time and time again, Jesus reached out and lifted up the fallen; those despised by the world, discredited by their waywardness, and forlorn of hope, now touched by his transforming love. Their stories of redemption are scattered throughout the ministry and parables of Jesus.
These are the testimonies to the mighty power of God, who so loved the world.
On that holy night of the dear Savior’s birth, the world had long lay “in sin and error pining.” Desperate for love and for hope. When Jesus Christ appeared, “the soul felt its worth.” The weary world experienced a “thrill of hope” and the world rejoiced, “for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”
For you and me, for our families, our friends, our neighbors, our colleagues—a struggling child or grandchild—for those we lift in prayer, Christmas reminds us of how much God loves each of us—no matter what we’ve experienced, what we’ve done, where we’ve been, how we feel, or what we think.
He is the Redeemer of broken lives.
God’s message of joy to the world is this: it’s never too late to start over.
To order Jack Wyman’s book, “Everything Else: Stories of Life, Faith and Our World”, go to amazon.com, Christian Book Distributors or barnesandnoble.com. It is also available on Kindle and eBooks.
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