I thought it was just another one of those children's movies. I was reviewing "Charlotte's Web" to check its suitability to be screened for the kids in the kindy. My teacher said it was a very good movie. And she was right - actually not so much for kids, coz it's a wee bit too 'deep' for them. But 2 hrs viewing this ingenious story of a runt pig headed for the slaughter-house and a teensy-weensy spider who saved him, losing her life in the process, certainly made this old aunty ponder. Throw in a whole barn full of witty talking animals and its quite a movie. Published in 1952, the book written by American author EB White is considered as classic children's literature and won several literary awards. I have never read the book, but having sat thru the Hollywood adaptation, I can understand why it's a winner....
It speaks to the heart of heart things. Wilbur the enthusiastic pig full of zest who thinks everyone's name is 'great' reaches out to all as a fren. Through his eyes, I am reminded of the joy of the simplest things; he took me back to the long-forgotten innocence of my childhood; when life really was a ball then, fun was just walking in the rain, playing hop-scotch and aeroplane with my frens. But more than just rekindling the nice warm nostalgia of yester-years, the skinny (go figure, how a pig can be skinny!) little pig's unhesitating acceptance of an ugly barn spider as 'beautiful' evoked an uncomfortable reminder of how shallow society can be and how the best of us can be presumptous snobs of the highest order. Whilst the rest of the barn occupants rejected this 'mere insect', a pig looked beyond the montrosity of a weird-looking arachnid with 8 legs and saw something different....
2000 years ago, people looked at Someone hanging naked, dying on a cross and shook their heads at the sheer ugliness of it all. Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ drew a gruesome and gory picture of the reality of Jesus' crucifixion at the cross at Calvary; it put into graphical pictorial form what words could never do - what a tortured bleeding man looked like - it was anything but beautiful. How can there be beauty in such horror? Yet an old hymn called the cross 'wondrous'. In the eyes of ordinary mortals, what's so wondrous about 2 pieces of wood?? In those days criminals were routinely crucified on crosses anyway; nothing to shout about really. Why should Calvary's Cross be any different? - Because of Who hung on it....Not a guilty human being who deserved to be punished, but the Divine One who con-descended to take all of humanity's guilt. The prophet put it this way, " He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with
suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and
we esteemed him not" (Isa. 53:3).We can't appreciate that in the ugliness of Calvary's Cross hung truth, good and beauty unsurpassed. Truth of man's sin which condemns, good of God's mercy that saves, beauty of God's grace undeserved, unasked for, yet given anyway. As the old hymn ends, "When I survey the wondrous cross ...On which the prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride.." Aren't we all presumptous snobs when we assume what looks ugly can never be true, good or beautiful? Proud creatures that we are, as easily as the barn animals dismissed Charlotte the spider, because all they saw was a spider, a plain ordinary (and ugly) spider, many dismiss Jesus Christ as a man who died on a cross, because all they see is a man, a plain ordinary (albeit noble) man.
The tragedy is we can't see beyond our eyes, and therefore we miss the miracle in the seemingly ordinary. We can't understand that ugly can be beautiful, surrender can be freedom, and death can be life.
"But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed..." Isaiah 53:5
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