This movie is only 90 minutes, and it goes by fast because the action starts early and never lets up. It takes place over 48 hours which is the time it takes to cross the “black pit”, the name given to the middle of the North Atlantic that has no allied air cover from either North America or Europe. There is no character development or complicated plot, only unrelenting peril. It is a gigantic cat-and-mouse scene spread over thousands of square miles. No time for sleep or meals; always on edge. The ocean is always dark and violent. The wolves are constantly popping up from the shadows and attacking. The tension would have been exhausting, the listening, the straining, the dread, it made me tired just watching it. I liked it.
Hanks wrote the screenplay based on the book “The Good Shepherd” by CS Forester. The first words of dialogue in the movie are “yesterday, and today, and forever”, a reference to Hebrews 13:8. The camera shows us this verse printed on a card in the captains’ cabin twice as he kneels to pray at the beginning and end of his perilous voyage. “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”
Why is this important? Because everything about the film communicates uncertainty: the insanity of war, the brevity of life, the fragility of humans, the tossing of the waves, the attacks of the unseen enemy. This is life. Or, at least how it can feel at times. A journey across a dark sea full of uncertainties and troubles. A voyage full of threats that leave you doubting if you will ever get your little flock to the other side. Your instruments fail you. The weather is against you. The wolves are always out there, circling in the darkness. You have little stability or confidence. You need assurance. Hebrews 13:8.
Everything changes. Not Jesus. Governments rise and fall, economies collapse, the seas rage, armies march and bleed, we all age and wear out like a garment; through it all he remains. He has always been. He will always be. Through all the shifting sands of our turbulent culture he remains unchanged. If you are the same person that you were twenty years ago there is probably something wrong with you; we need to change, he does not. I am unstable and unreliable by nature, he is not.
He is the same God who came and walked among us. He has not changed. He is still compassionate, still patient, still kind, still powerful, still wise, still gentle. To the self-righteous and the proud he remains cold and distant. To the poor in spirit, the broken, and the lost, he remains warm and welcoming. Some like to say that God can do anything, but it isn’t true. He cannot lie, he cannot quit, and he cannot change.
We are going through troubled waters as a family. I assume some of you are also. You cannot attempt to walk with God in this world and go unopposed. When my wife and I look to the future we see dark and stormy waters. We see constant threats beneath the surface and the assaults of the enemy can seem relentless. There are days when we cannot see how we will ever make it through to the other side where the air cover is. But we will. Not because we are smart or strong or even lucky. But because when the ground beneath our feet becomes violent tossing waves that threaten our stability we cling not only to each other, but to the endless person who is the one fixed point who fills the cosmos. For he is not only the same yesterday, today and forever, he is also the good shepherd.
“When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace; in every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.”