I
thoroughly enjoyed, and highly recommend, the recent Imax high-adventure film, Everest, a cinematic
dramatization based on the actual events of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition.
I’m being
sort of careful here not to give away the film’s climactic events, though this expedition
has been extensively documented, most famously in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air.
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If this
latter-day Everest is similarly a
movie about heroes—and I say it is—then the chief hero is Rob Hall, another New
Zealander (played by an Australian, Jason Clarke). Hall, a world-class climber,
went on to make his reputation and living by guiding amateur mountaineers to
the top of Everest for a substantial fee… and bringing them safely down
again.
I’m
not here to discuss the pros and cons of such commercial summiting; you can
read Krakauer for that (though I am somewhat troubled by parents of minor
children who put their lives at high risk if not done in the line of duty).
What makes
this spectacular “event” film so compelling is watching Hall’s attempt to shepherd his wayward
flock to and from the summit of Everest, without losing anyone in the process. It
was not simply a matter of professionalism; according to a distinguished fellow
climber (David Brashears), Hall “conveyed an absolute sense of care and
guidance.”
Whatever
Hall’s contractual obligations to his climbing clients, the actual steps he
took to keep them safe in the “thin air” death zone of Everest were more than
heroic. The unwritten terms of the deal, apparently, were that this high-altitude shepherd was
willing to sacrifice his own life to save those he guided.
Remind
anyone of a certain Scripture?
“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd
lays down His life for the sheep.”— John 10:11 (NASB)
So,
yes, in that light it’s a Christlike story; and, in fact, it’s hard not to view
it in that light. The expanded parable appears in Luke’s Gospel:
“What man among you, if he has a hundred
sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open
pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found
it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls
together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I
have found my sheep which was lost!’”—Luke 15:4-6 (NASB)
It’s
certainly been an oft-used parable by Hollywood, perhaps second only to The Prodigal Son. (Godfather anyone?) Can you think of any other
Good Shepherd books or movies?
A
couple come to my mind. The first is easy. The
Good Shepherd was actually the title of a 1955 novel by the legendary C. S. Forester
(creator of the Horatio Hornblower series and The African Queen).
For
just over 300 pages, Forester describes, in masterful detail, the heroic
efforts of a U.S. destroyer captain to protect his Atlantic merchant convoy (it’s
WWII) from predatory packs of U-boats. I don’t think the poor bastard leaves
the bridge or sleeps a wink from first sentence to last.
No, I
take that back, because here’s the final sentence: “He could be called happy
now, lying spread-eagled and face downward on his bunk, utterly unconscious.”
Kind
of like Rob Hall, or Christ Crucified.
Which
brings me to Schindler’s List (or Schindler’s Ark as Tom Keneally’s novel
is known in England). Keneally’s book and Spielberg’s movie, masterpieces both,
cast a blinding light on the Good
Shepherd parable. The initially self-serving Oskar Schindler ultimately risks
everything to save his Schindlerjuden
(Schindler Jews) from the Nazi Holocaust, even getting them some of them
released from an Auschwitz-bound boxcar on a railroad siding.
Postscript:
There were other “Schindlers,” too, most notably Sir Nicholas Winton and Raoul Wallenberg.
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