A Happy Ending

People love happy endings.  They want to see good triumph over evil, the right guy to get the girl, and the villains to receive the justice they deserve.  A movie that does not end "happily" in the eyes of the viewers is wholly tainted.  I feel I am a bit of an anomaly because I don't need a happy ending to enjoy a film.  I actually appreciate a director who will risk his movies being unpopular because he or she is willing to to throw aside the cliche to make a point.  Perhaps this ruins the fantasy escapism people seek when they choose entertainment.  They would rather a movie end their way, even if it is predictable.

As I'm reading through Killing Fields Living Fields by Don Cormack, there are glorious testimonies among the darkness that shine with Christ-like brilliance.  When Cambodia was in the throes of her genocidal revolution primarily from 1975 to 1979, the amount of suffering of Christians and ordinary citizens is hardly thinkable.  It is in the darkest seasons that the light of Christ shines the brightest.  Being a Christian did not spare people from the brutality and torture of the Khmer Rouge's demonic rule.  In fact, Christians were singled out for execution because of their beliefs.  The words of Christ rang true:  in this world they experienced tribulation, but they were of good cheer because Jesus has overcome the world.  For some this overcoming came through martyrdom.

While there are stories of miraculous deliverance as God hid people from detection of their enemies, others faced death with steadfastness and resolve for the glory of God.  A particularly poignant story is related in the book about a Christian family that had been singled out for execution.  On page 230, the story is told about a family that was forced to dig their own grave.  As they knelt in prayer led by the father Haim, one of his sons fled into the bush to escape his captors.  The story is told like this:

Haim jumped up and with amazing coolness and authority prevailed upon the Khmer Rouge not to pursue the lad, but allow him to call the boy back.  The knots of onlookers, peering around trees, the Khmer rough, and the stunned family still kneeling at the graveside, looked on in awe as Haim began calling his son, pleading with him to return and die together with the family.

'What comparison, my son,' he called out, 'stealing a few more days of life in the wilderness, a fugitive, wretched and alone, to joining your family here momentarily around this grave but soon around the throne of God, free forever in Paradise?'  After a few tense minutes the bushes parted, and the lad, weeping, walking slowly back to his place with the kneeling family. 'Now we are ready to go,' Haim told the Khmer Rouge.

But by this time there was not a soldier standing there who had the heart to raise his hoe to deliver the death blow on the backs of these noble heads.  Ultimately this had to be done by the Khmer Rouge commune chief, who had not witnessed these things.  But few of those watching doubted that as each of these Christians' bodies toppled silently into the earthen pit which the victims themselves had prepared, their souls soared heavenward to a place prepared by their Lord.

I ask you:  is that a happy ending?  From a strictly human perspective, there is no silver lining to this cloud.  It is a tragedy that a poor helpless family would be bludgeoned to death by merciless thugs.  But those with spiritual sight and faith in Christ see this as a happy ending indeed!  Their souls found release through the death of the body to a glorious entrance into the presence of the LORD.  It is not a happy ending but a joyful beginning!  A rich man with every worldly comfort and accolade dying in his bed surrounded by his family without Christ is the most tragic ending of all!  For everyone without Christ as LORD and Saviour, their days upon this earth could be defined as merely stealing a few days in the wilderness, wretched and alone, waiting for death to seize upon them.  Every word, deed, thought, even all the good left undone will be be judged according to God's righteous statues.  There will be no joy or happiness in the death of those who die apart from Christ because hell will be their everlasting portion.  Yet for those born again through faith in Jesus Christ, what unspeakable joy lays before us even in death!  Jesus died and rose from the dead so we might live with Him forever.

May God impress upon us all the temporary nature of this life and our need to lean wholly upon Christ in faith.  The world is not worthy of such sacrificial love and devotion unto God seen in Haim and his family.  Resolve in God's strength for our lives to glorify Christ according to what is written in Philippians 1:18-21:  "What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice. ¹⁹ For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, ²⁰ according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹ For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain."