Redemption

The movie Shawshank Redemption (first released in 1994) is still available at Blockbuster and on cable. In some ways I hate to mention a positive example from a movie, because someone will surely take offense and mention some “bad part” of that movie and “question my conversion” for having even watched the movie, and beyond that, for feeling that it had some redeeming feature! We humans love to jump on anything that will make us feel at least somewhat superior, and of course one sure way of feeling superior is to condemn someone else. Actually, the toxic pattern of judgment and condemnation, often encouraged by self-righteous, holier-than-thou religion, is why the message of Shawshank Redemption is so uplifting.

In biblical terms, the word redemption is usually used to mean saving up from the punishment for our sins. But there is another kind of redemption – it is saving us from the institutionalized forms of legalistic religion.

Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, is the central character in the story. Andy, a vice-president of a bank, was wrongly convicted of the murder of his wife and her lover, and is the one truly innocent person in Shawshank prison. He becomes friends with Red, played by Morgan Freeman, who is the only prisoner who actually admits being guilty.

Promotional copy and posters for the movie proclaim the liberating power of hope and the biblical themes of freedom and resurrection with the words, “Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.” While Andy is challenged by and must deal with all of the cruelty and inhumanity of prison life, nothing stops him from eventually finding a way to escape.

When Andy first arrives at Shawshank to begin two consecutive life terms for murders he did not commit, he meets the self-righteous, Bible carrying Warden. The Warden serves as a stereotype of the kind of person or institution who attempts to inflict a twisted version of Christianity on others, through fear and intimidation. The Warden holds Andy, innocent of the crime for which he has been convicted, captive through condemnation. Yes, the Warden is a picture of hypocritical people and religious institutions that attempt to control us in the name of their own greed, avarice and lust.

Andy, the intelligent ex-banker, soon determines that he can further his escape by appealing to the greed of prison guards and the Warden himself. He offers to help prison officials as a financial planner, and succeeds in saving them money. In return Andy is given a job assisting Brooks, who has been the prison librarian for 37 years. Andy sets up an office in the library, doing tax returns for the Warden and all of the Shawshank prison guards. As the end of Brooks’ sentence nears, Brooks is desperate to remain within the security of the only world he knows – prison – but he is released anyway. The voice-over of Red, played by Morgan Freeman, who serves as the film’s narrator, explains:
He’s just institutionalized…the man’s been in here fifty years. This is all he knows…these walls are funny. First you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em. Enough time passes, it gets so you depend on ‘em. That’s “institutionalized”…they send you here for life and that’s exactly what they take…

Brooks is released, but he is lonely, afraid, unable to cope – disoriented outside of a regimented world that tells him exactly what to do and when to do it. Brooks serves as an example of so many who are so abused by religion that when they are offered freedom in Christ they refuse it – choosing instead to remain comfortable and assured that they are doing all of the right things and that the institution will take care of them. Finally Brooks can’t take it anymore, and he hangs himself in the dingy room he has rented.

Through careful planning, Andy is finally able to escape crawling the last 500 yards through raw sewage in a sewer conduit to his freedom. In perhaps the most well-known single image from the movie, Andy stands in a driving rain in the river into which the prison sewer empties. He tears off his prison shirt and extends his arms upward to heaven – victorious and liberated as the rain washes down on him from heaven, cleansing him and giving his new life.

Through meticulous planning Andy is able to leave funds for Red to join him in Mexico. Shawshank Redemption ends as the camera pans across the Pacific, then dissolves to a scene of Red walking barefoot on the sand toward an old wreck of a boat. Andy is carefully sanding the boat, and then the camera shows us that Andy recognizes his friend walking toward him. As Andy jumps up to run and greet Red the camera pulls back, showing the broad expanse of the beach and ocean, with the horizon showing no walls, no iron bars, no guards, no hypocritical, condemning Warden. Andy and Red are redeemed and reconciled with the precious gift of their freedom.

Shawshank Redemption, of course, is not the gospel. It does not point us directly to Christ, but it does make us acutely aware of our human dilemma. Andy was able to escape the harsh bondage to which he had been unjustly sentenced by wits and cunning. Red did his time and was finally released. Brooks was also released, but he had become so institutionalized that he could not function in freedom.

All of the “religions” of the world except true Christianity call for a form of institutional legalism. And even within Christianity there is a form of institutional legalism – follow the rules and you can please God enough to let you into heaven.

For most Christians, there are actually two redemptions: first, the redemption from sin by the grace, the unmerited favor, of God through the Cross of Christ, and second, the redemption from legalism and the concept of earning heaven. We must come to see that the Christian life after conversion is also totally by the grace of God.

There are millions of people who find themselves in religious captivity. Some are like Brooks, the prison librarian, who grew comfortable with rituals, regulations, restrictions and routines. Others are like Andy and Red, looking for a way out. They all need our prayers. They need people who have been in spiritual bondage to help show them the way out. They need, more than anything, to know Jesus, the architect of our spiritual redemption at our new birth in Christ, and also the architect of our redemption from legalism because He lives in us to direct us and give us His freedom in one command:
A NEW Commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you…by this shall all men know that you are my disciples (John 13:34-35).

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