The Invisible God

I just watched a movie called “Henry Poole Is Here.” There is a little bit of rough language in it, but, other than that, it was a pretty decent movie. Some of the theology in it may be defective, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing—we shouldn’t be getting our theology from movies anyway, but theological references in movies can be thought provoking. There are an awful lot of us that don’t question what we believe nearly enough. Faith is one thing, unquestioning, blind faith, is something else altogether.

Anyway, in this movie, the title character, Henry Poole, has learned that he has a terminal illness. We are not told what illness, only that it is inoperable, and untreatable. His plan is to buy the house he grew up in, buy a whole bunch of booze, retire from the human race, and just stay drunk until his inevitable demise. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the house is not for sale. There is another house in the same neighborhood that is available, but the house needs some work. He doesn’t care about that, he just wants to die in his old neighborhood. The realtor arranges for the work to be done anyway, and he moves in. Soon, a neighbor notices that there is an image in the new stucco; she thinks it resembles Christ. She tells some other people about it, and soon people are coming to Henry Poole’s house to pray, and to seek healing. At least a few of them actually do get healed, but Henry stubbornly refuses to believe, and even makes fun of people praying to “a wall.”

The movie kind of reminded me of a passage in Numbers, where the children of Israel were plagued by serpents, and God told Moses to make a “fiery serpent” and set it where people could see it. Moses made a serpent out of brass, and elevated it above the congregation. Whenever anyone got bit by a serpent, then all that person had to do was to look at the brazen serpent, and they would live. The Scriptures don’t specifically say it, but I have to believe that some of the Israelites probably got stubborn and refused to look at the serpent after getting bit, and so died. I just know enough about human nature to know that some people would dismiss the brazen serpent as stupid.

Don’t misunderstand me, I tend to go along with Henry Poole as far as images healing people, at least, in this day and age. I have noticed that whenever there is a stain, or a deformity in some concrete somewhere, or even a cloud formation that resembles a face, if that face has a beard, then some people will say that it looks like Jesus, and if it doesn’t have a beard, then it looks like mother Mary. Of course, our understanding of what Jesus and Mary actually looked like is mostly based on Renaissance paintings by artists who had never seen Jesus or Mary either. John 4:24 says that God is a Spirit—his face is something that we wouldn’t even be able to register with our fleshly eyes. Does He heal? Absolutely, but if you need something that you can see to pray to just to ask for a healing, then you really don’t have the kind of faith that you should have. When we get to Heaven, then we will see Him as He is.