Joyful Ruins

“Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”- Originally from Talmud, found in Schindler’s List

I finally watched Schindler’s List. I had put it off for years because I knew it would be heavy and would take a lot of emotion out of me. I watched it this last week and it seemed to be the perfect timing as I have chewed on its messages since, trying to apply them to myself and the circumstances we are experiencing in this nation.

As a personality type which feels for everyone and everything- covid, police brutality, racial injustice, and all the suffering in this world- can overwhelm me and eventually immobilize me. I want to help everyone, to understand and love on each person, each group, and the impossibility of that leaves me drained and discouraged. I know I can’t stay in that mindset and this quote from Schindler’s List has helped me process that: “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”

Schindler was a businessman who was also a member of the Nazi party. He was imperfect in so many ways, yet he saved a near 1200 Jewish men, women, and children from death during the Holocaust. He is cherished and remembered for this.

Near the end of the 1993 film, he breaks down in tears over how many more Jews he could have saved. However, the Jews he had saved stood there, alive and breathing, free, as a testimony of his work.

This epitomizes  questions I have been faced with during these circumstances. As a white christian, I ask myself, what can I do to bring justice, to love others, to change things? How can I make a difference?

When I think I have found an answer or done something to contribute, I read an instagram post or an article, or even a book telling me, “That is not enough”, that I must do more, we must do more.

According to scripture, that is absolutely true. Isaiah 64:6 says, “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” None of our works are enough to cover our sins and save us from punishment. Only the finished work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection from the grace is enough. If we believe in Him and live for Him, it is enough. It is from His finished work that we can live empowered to do work in faith and grace.

Coming from such a foundation should bring us encouragement, guidance, and energy. However, the world can distort this truth, telling us we have not done enough and we never will.

Imagine for a moment if someone had told Schindler, “You are not doing enough.” He may have given up and not saved one Jew. He may have grown discouraged, disheartened, and depressed, and given up all together. Or, he may have saved more Jews. We cannot know. Instead, one Jew after Jew, he saved, until there were 1200 saved from the Nazis. Will we look at that and say, “Those 1200 lives were not enough”? Or can we say, “1200 lives were saved! Let’s keep adding to that. You have begun the work Schindler, keep going.”

I do not want to stay immobilized because I fear the voice within me or in the world telling me, “It is not enough.” So, I must start, I must take a step forward, and another, and another, believing and knowing, I can’t do enough, but I can do something! When I hear groups of people telling me what I do is not enough, I will change that voice to say instead, “You are doing well, keep going.” Let’s not grow discouraged as we learn, act, give, as we grow, as long as we grow, we are doing all we can. Dream big, absolutely, while keeping this in mind: whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.