Benoit & Father Jud

When Netflix released the third installment in director Rian Johnson’s Knives Out franchise, Wake Up, Dead Man, I had at least three different friends (who aren’t Christians) tell me excitedly, “you’re going to love this movie. So much of the God and church stuff.” 

They were not wrong. 

I’ve appreciated Rian Johnson’s other films, from Looper to The Last Jedi, to his prior two Knives Out movies, which have led the recent revival of “whodunit” murder-mysteries. And there was a lot I found fascinating about this film: the visual palette and the use of light and shadow, for example. The nods to John Dickson Carr and his detective-fiction classic The Three Coffins. The performances of the star-studded cast. The musical score, and its curation of Tom Waits, the Talking Heads, Roxy Music, the Catholic hymn “Lord of the Dance,” and even Larry Norman. 

But my favorite moment in the film is the first interaction that Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) and Father Jud (Joshua O’Connor) share. As the movie begins, Father Jud Duplenticy, a young, sincere, and naive Catholic priest — “young, dumb, and full of Christ,” by his own description — has been assigned to Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, a small-town Catholic church in upstate New York. Almost immediately, he finds himself at odds with the rector of the parish, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (who evokes a culture-war, MAGA-Christianity). And then, on Good Friday, Wicks is murdered. 

While Father Jud kneels in prayer in the sanctuary, Benoit Blanc, genius detective, enters. Father Jud welcomes him in, and gestures into the empty expanse: “Hard to be in here and not feel his presence. . . ” Blanc, however, simply chuckles. Father Jud presses: “You’re not a Catholic?” Blanc smiles: “Very much not, no. Proud heretic. I kneel at the altar of the rational.” After inquiring about his family background, Father Jud asks again: “How does all of this make you feel?”

To which Blanc responds, “How does it make me feel? Truthfully? Well, the architecture, that interests me. I feel the grandeur of it, the mystery. And it’s like someone’s shown a story at me that I do not believe, that’s built upon the promise of a child’s fairy tale. . .” He rails on the Church’s various and sundry failings and scandals, and continues, “I want to pick it apart, and pop its befidious bubble of belief, and get to a truth I can swallow without choking.” And then, after pausing, Blanc adds, “The rafter details are very fine, though…”

Go On Being Filled With Wonder

I’ve thought about that exchange a lot through the weeks of December. On a walk through my neighborhood one night to take in the lights, I was struck that one of my neighbors had arranged a holiday scene on their front lawn that included Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Magi, flanked by Frosty the Snowman and an inflatable Santa whose sleigh was being pulled by a team of dolphins (I live in South Florida, for context).

This is a picture, I think, of why many thoughtful people in the 21^st century, whom Daniel Craig’s character evokes, think that the Christian story is little more than “a child’s fairy tale”– and one that’s been used to violent, wicked ends, at that. Because the story of Jesus has become part of the cultural-holiday furniture, many don’t take Jesus any more seriously than Frosty or Rudolf. 

This is where the testimony of our ancient parents in Christian faith is such a gift to us. The first centuries of Christians insisted that the central teaching of Christianity, which we trumpet December by December, is a mystery. The Incarnation is news: “good news, of great joy, for all the people”– an announcement about something that has happened, out in the open, on our soil, that changes everything forever. But it’s not a whodunit to be solved; it’s an endless expanse of truth, beauty, and transcendence to revere.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reading my way through Augustine of Hippo’s Advent and Christmas preaching. His fourth-century proclamations are a tonic for the hot-cocoa kind of sentimentality that surrounds us, and they invite us to wonder at the good news of Incarnation. So hear his reverent summons: 

Our Savior, born of the Father apart from any day, and through whom every single day has been made, wished to have as his birth day on earth this particular day we are now celebrating. . . Go on being filled with wonder; the one who bore him is both mother and virgin; the One she bore is both speechless infant and Word. Rightly did the heavens speak, angels celebrate, shepherds rejoice; rightly were astrologers changed, kings troubled, little children crowned.

This is the good news of great joy for all people: Christ is born. Glory to God, and peace on earth.

Go on and be filled with wonder!

*****

In this final week of the year, we ask for your strong and generous financial support.
We come to you daily with a blog, weekly with a featured essay, plus reviews and poetry.

We hope you’ll be glad and eager to make a donation to keep the Reformed Journal going.
Simply click on the purple box below to find out all the options for giving.