A Shadow or the Real Thing?

 

Have you ever watched the movie, "Groundhog Day"?  Now, that's probably not a question you would expect to have put to you here, but bear with me, please.  "Groundhog Day" is one of my favorite movies because of the spiritual truth it contains.  "Groundhog Day, spiritual?  Are you kidding me?" you may be saying.  Let me explain.

 

If you haven't seen the movie, or even if you have and it's been a while, let me summarize.  In this movie, Bill Murray plays a cynical, self-centered TV weather anchorman named Phil who thinks his assignment to cover the annual event of Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog) emerging from his "den" to be beneath such a star as himself.  Anchorman Phil gripes and complains about his assignment and basically lets everyone around him who's enjoying the event, see his disdain for what he considers to be their foolish behavior.  When a blizzard keeps Phil and his co-workers in Punxsatawney, Phil becomes even more belligerant, which then dooms him to repeating the same horrible day over and over again.  It takes Phil a while to realize what's happening, but when he does, he begins to fill his days with excesses of behavior, all in an attempt to indulge himself and to win his beautiful female co-anchor's favor.  If he can only appear to be the kind of guy she admires, then surely she will fall for him, yes?  He has an endless number of days in which to shadow her and wheedle information from her so he can deceitfully discover how to win her heart.  Days in which he will pretend to be the man she wants, though the truth is, he is far from actually being that man.   

           

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.  Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.  Matthew 23: 27-28

 

Such are the words Jesus had for men who strive to appear outwardly righteous while having no inner desire to actually be righteous.  It is one thing to want to appear to be righteous, but it is quite another thing entirely to actually strive to be righteous. 

 

In the movie, Phil is eventually transformed to the point that he wants to be that good man he's been pretending to be, and his actions of service to others become genuine and not just acts performed for the sake of impressing those around him with his "goodness."

 

He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him."  John 7:18

           

In the things we do for others, whose glory are we seeking?  God's, or our own?  Do we only want to appear to be righteous, or do we truly want to be righteous?  Unlike Phil in the movie, we don't get to live our worst day over and over again until we get it right.  Today is the day.  Will we be the real thing, or only its shadow?

 

Daye Phillippo

March 2010