I love the story of Les Miserables.
Just a few minutes ago, I was lying on my friends’ couch (my typical Saturday night state–thank God for hospitable friends!). We discussed change, and how hard it is to have faith that it will come, either in ourselves or in others.
Now, I’m at my wooden kitchen table, head resting on the chair back (poor posture alert). I just heard this song playing from the speakers in my bathroom.
Javert, the chief of police, sings those words to Jean Valjean, the ex-convict hero of Les Miserables.
The policeman goes on: “You know nothing of Javert. I was born inside a jail. I was born with scum like you. I am from the gutter, too.”
It’s a heartbreak, because so often, it’s true. People don’t change much. Sometimes people make miraculous life changes, but it’s so unusual, we treasure their stories like rare metal.
The Bible also agrees with Javert’s “scum” comment. We are all from the gutter. We were all born in jail.
But what Javert ignores is that God had given Jean Valjean the key from the jail, when he was forgiven by the kind bishop who could have had him arrested for theft.
Jean Valjean couldn’t change, but God changed him.
It takes only a moment for God to forever change people. Once witness to his power to change, we get excited. Like the bishop, we realize that nothing, no one, is beyond God’s reach. “Men like us” can change.
Like the old bishop, we become the conduit of God’s presence…. to the next person that no one believed would ever change.