Its a Wonderful Life I Want to Live Again Quote
The Gospel Message in 'It's a Wonderful Life'
"Merry Christmas, Emporium! Merry Christmas, yous wonderful sometime Building and Loan! Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter!"
No, I'm not watching It's a Wonderful Life. I'k watching existent people run down the main drag of Seneca Falls which, according to local legend, is the New York community upon which manager Frank Capra based his fictional Bedford Falls seventy years ago.
It's the town where, during the almanac It's a Wonderful Life festival, many of us are making fools of ourselves.
My husband and I visited Seneca Falls 2 Christmases ago during the festival — and felt as though we had somehow fallen into the film itself. Look! That big Victorian house looks just like the one George and Mary Bailey moved into on their wedding day. Wait at the globe street lamps, and the Christmas wreaths hanging over the street! And that steel truss span at the finish of town? Information technology looks exactly like the 1 George Bailey (played past James Stewart) jumped off of in the film.
Wandering down Fall Street, we are suddenly confronted by "Uncle Billy," who asks if we've seen his missing $8,000. Others encounter a snarling "Sometime Human Potter," who is threatening to put George Bailey put in jail, and perchance you, too.
My husband jogged through the 5K "It's a Wonderful Run" alongside runners wearing reindeer antlers or twinkle lights slung near their torsos. We met Karolyn Grimes and Carol Coombs, who played Bailey daughers Zuzu and Janie. Couples twirled together at the Dance by the Lite of the Moon ball, while at the Clarence Hotel, the flick itself ran continuously on a entrance hall wall.
And then there were the folks who could non resist the temptation to run downwardly the snowy street shouting Jimmy Stewart's lines.
It was nifty, Capra-corny fun. I wish I could get back and take role in this twelvemonth's festival, because I am crazy most this film and what it represents — so crazy that I penned a sequel to it titled Bedford Falls: The Story Continues, in which I imagine what became of the Baileys, Mr. Gower, the Martini family unit, bad daughter Violet Bick, and all the other characters and their descendants — especially George's grandson, who has forgotten the lessons his grandpa taught him.
Clearly, plenty of other people from effectually the globe are only equally fond of this motion picture as I am; Why else would thousands of them visit "Bedford Falls" every winter? Merely I wonder if they're fully aware of exactly why they beloved it.
If you asked, they might say they think George Bailey is a great guy who always tried to do the right thing. The happy catastrophe brings tears to their optics as George realizes that his family unit and friends have fabricated his life rich. They remember Donna Reed is adorable, and similar the fact that they can watch this film with their kids. Only do they actually empathize what this moving picture is about on its deepest level?
Grab a shovel. We're going to dig deeper.
First, I believe nosotros dear this film because and so many of us have lost a sense of customs. Some 60 percentage of us move away from our domicile towns, which enquiry reveals can lead to long-lasting low and shorter life spans; thus, we gaze hungrily at scenes of pleasant pocket-size town life where everybody knows everybody else and cares well-nigh their neighbors' well-being, sharing in one another's joys (the Martinis getting out of his Potter's Field shack and into a house in Bailey Park) and sorrows (the whole town praying for a distraught George when he disappears into the nighttime on Christmas Eve).
We also run into and capeesh the sense of pulling together in a worthy cause — whether information technology'due south neighbors fighting together against a common enemy during World War II, or hurriedly raising the $8,000 Uncle Billy lost. It's too, past the manner, a town that makes room for the Uncle Billys of the earth — people who need a picayune extra help.
2d, who doesn't like seeing good triumphing over evil, of piffling guys like George Bailey outfoxing powerful bullies like Henry F. Potter, the richest and meanest human being in the canton, over and over again?
But what this film is nigh, at its deepest level, is the gospel message.
It'due south a Wonderful Life is a magnificent cinematic depiction of the words of Jesus: "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his ain soul?" (Matthew 16:26)
Elsewhere in Matthew, we learn of Jesus beingness tempted by the devil, who showed Him the glories of the kingdoms of the world, and told Him, "All these I will give you, if you volition autumn down and worship me." (Matt 4:nine).
Jesus's answer? "Begone, Satan! for it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'"
In Wonderful Life, we run into a similar scenario: The tempter, Henry Potter, offers George Bailey everything he has ever wanted: travel to Europe, lots of money, the nicest house in town, lovely clothes for his wife, and a far more interesting job than he has at the Building and Loan.
George is tempted. He has wanted these things — and they are good things — for a long time. Simply in the end, he memorably calls Potter "aught but a scurvy little spider," and turns him down. Be gone, Satan!
The devil was not finished with Jesus later on his first attempt to corrupt Him. He attacked Him again and again, including in the Garden of Gethsemane. Similarly, Old Man Potter has a standing function in the many temptations of George Bailey.
For case, George is complimentary to go to higher — simply if he goes, the Building and Loan will close, leaving George'due south neighbors to Potter'southward tender mercies. George as well sacrifices his honeymoon to protect the townspeople from Potter'due south mechanisms. (You can't help wondering if Potter chose George and Mary's wedding day to make his "l cents on the dollar" offer to Bedford Fallsians in social club to find out if George would give upwardly his wedding trip to stop him.) And George sacrifices his dream of the exciting life he wants then desperately to live in order to give his brother Harry the life HE wants to alive, perhaps sensing that Harry would be a miserable failure at the Building and Loan business.
George Bailey'due south soul was not for auction. Without realizing it, George, through his many sacrifices for others, has spent his life imitating Christ. And Potter, by forfeiting his soul for earthly wealth, becomes, as George puts it, a "warped, frustrated old man."
We don't always get to live the life nosotros want. Sacrifices can exist plush, and we sometimes struggle to practice the right matter. But Wonderful Life invites u.s. to enquire ourselves, every day, what the consequences of our decisions might be. At a deeper, more than subtle level, the film reminds us that living a skillful life means consistently imitating the Lord nosotros merits to serve, not simply throwing up a prayer now and and then when we need help.
These lessons were likely far from the minds of festival-goers in Seneca Falls, who were focused on hearing "Zuzu" describe what it was like clinging to Jimmy Stewart'southward neck in the last scene of the film, wolfing downwardly pastries at "It's a Wonderful Breakfast," or buying angel ornaments to accept home with them. But later on, if they are like me, they volition go home, unpack, pile some cookies on a plate, pour a glass of eggnog, and watch this corking film once again with their families.
And if they are wise, they will help their children or grandchildren empathise one of the reasons why we love this 70-year-old picture black-and-white reel of "Capra-corn": It's a masterpiece of biblical didactics.
Anne Morse is the author of Bedford Falls: The Story Continues and other books. She lives in Maryland.
Source: https://www.christianpost.com/news/the-gospel-message-in-its-a-wonderful-life-movie.html
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