The movie, “Unbroken” opens in theaters this week. Based on the best-selling book of the same name, “Unbroken” is the story of the amazing life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic track champion and World War II veteran who survived a plane crash and forty-seven days on a raft in the Pacific Ocean.
Zamperini was then captured by the enemy and experienced brutal torture in a Japanese prison camp. There was one prison guard known as, “The Bird” who tortured him unmercifully. But Zamperini managed to survive and returned to his home in California after the war. Once back in the states, he struggled with PTSD and understandable bitterness. He turned to alcohol for relief and dreamed of returning to Japan to murder “The Bird.”
But there’s a crucial part of the story that’s not included in the movie, which is directed by Angelina Jolie. In 1949 Louis Zamperini went to a Billy Graham crusade and heard the good news that Jesus came to save us from sin and despair. On the second night of the crusade Zamperini accepted Christ and turned from addictions and bitterness to faith and service.
With the Lord’s help he forgave his captors and wrote a moving letter to “The Bird,” telling his tormentor, “I also forgave you and now would hope that you would also become a Christian.”
Jamie Dean, recently reported in World Magazine that when he asked Louis Zamperini in 2011 what had been the best day of his life, he didn’t mention his liberation from war. He said, “It was the day I came to Christ.” It’s not surprising that Zamperini’s devotion to Christ is not included in the movie, but that’s the primary reason he was ultimately unbroken. The subtitle of the movie does read: “survival, resilience, redemption.”
For two thousand years Jesus Christ has been redeeming lives and performing a miracle in the hearts of people who are born again. The angel told Joseph, “…you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Max Lucado wrote, “Our problem is sin. Not finances. Not budgets. Not overcrowded prisons. Our problem is sin. We are in rebellion against our Creator. We’re cut off from the source of life. A new president or policy won’t fix that. It can only be solved by God. That is why the Bible uses drastic terms like conversion, repentance, and lost and found. Society may renovate, but only God re-creates.”
The final stanza of, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” expresses our greatest need this Christmas:
O Holy Child of Bethlehem descend on us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today
We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us Our Lord Emmanuel
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! – Bob & Judy
