Plot Twist
By Grant Gaines
Plot twists are in every good movie. It doesn’t matter the genre or the target audience of the film, you can almost guarantee that a movie with high ratings will contain some sort of a plot twist. A plot twist in its most simple terms is when the audience is thrown for a loop by an unforeseen change of events by the movie’s storyline.
Take “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” for example. Luke Skywalker is fighting viciously against his archenemy Darth Vader. The two are in the middle of a barbaric fight scene that the audience is sure will lead to the death of one of these two men. But without warning Darth Vader looks at Luke Skywalker and so famously says, “Luke, I am your father.” The crowd goes wild. No one could have guessed that was coming! What a plot twist!
But Hollywood isn’t the only people that can develop a good plot twist; Jesus had a tendency to give some pretty drastic plot twists of His own when He would teach His disciples and the crowds. Just take a moment to consider how the Sermon on the Mount begins – Jesus would state a commonly understood Old Testament command by saying, “You have heard that it was said…” but then rather than affirming that command, Jesus would take this command to the next level by saying, “But I say to you…” then go on to “up the ante” if you will.
But of all the plot twists that Jesus gave throughout His three year ministry, no twist was bigger than the one found in Luke 15.
It’s a story that you’ve heard a countless number of times whether you grew up in the church or recently came to the faith. It’s the story of the Prodigal Son. You know how it starts – the youngest son gets restless at home and demands that his father give him his inheritance immediately (which in that culture was essentially the same thing as telling his father he wishes he would just go ahead and die so that the son could get his money that would come from his father’s will) then runs off to live a life of wild and sinful indulgences. He ran off to the Las Vegas of Israel and denied himself no pleasure…until the money ran out and he realized that all of those people who hung around him were just after his money. He was broke, lonely, and afraid.
Finally, after hitting rock bottom, the rebellious and stubborn son “…came to his senses…” (Luke 15:17, NIV) and decided it would be better for him to return home to beg for forgiveness from his father than die of starvation in a foreign land.
It’s at this point in the story that the audience could have interrupted Jesus mid-sentence and finish His story. You see, the Pharisees in the crowd probably had this passage memorized while the rest of the common townspeople that were gathered around Jesus had likely heard this command a time or two while growing up going to “Saturday School” on the Sabbath while their parents were hearing a message from the Torah in “big synagogue.”
The passage I’m referring to is Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (NIV) which tells you what you are supposed to do if this exact situation occurs in your own home.
“If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.”
There you have it. That’s how the story would end in the mind of the audience gathered around Jesus. The stubborn, rebellious, gluttonous, and drunkard prodigal son was going to come back to the father only to be stoned to death as the Law required. Justice would be served and everyone would go along their way no different than before.
But as He so often did, Jesus threw a curve ball at the crowd. Rather than the son getting met with stones and immediate death, he was met with love and new life. Rather than receiving hatred, he received hugs. The son didn’t get a whooping, he got a party.
The jaws of the audience must have been on the ground when Jesus told them this part. They were so accustomed to hearing about justice, no mercy, and penalties that when Jesus ushered in this idea of a loving father, no one could have possibly fathomed an ending like that.
What’s so neat about this story is that Jesus began this chapter by telling His audience three separate parables that describe the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, the loving father that ran to meet his son with hugs and kisses rather than warming up his arm to throw some stones at him is a metaphor for our heavenly Father. While the whole world expects our stories to end with shame, guilt, and unforgiveness, God comes in with an unforeseen plot twist and offers us unlimited grace, unfathomable mercy, and unending love.
A “plot twist” is a good way to sum up the Gospel – “But God demonstrated His love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, NIV). While we deserved wrath and condemnation, God gave us life and hope.
The Master Plot Twister would love to offer you a second chance where the world has written you off as a good-for-nothing failure. It’s who He is and it’s what He does. Will you accept His forgiveness today and come running home as the prodigal son did?
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©Grant Gaines 2013
