Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

There are a number of things that I want to write about here but can't seem to arrive at the convergence of energy, inspiration and time.

This one promises to be short so I think I can attempt it...



Last night R. and I sat down to our usual custom on Sunday night - a Netflix movie.



We have recently received the John McCain prisoner of war movie, "Faith of My Fathers" - but I wasn't really in the mood for something so heavy. So R. picked "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days".



As she clicked the laptop and the screen went to the download page, I noticed in that last fleeting second that the movie genre was "foreign". I began making wagers in my mind as to how long the movie would last before she would suggest an "Andy Griffith" DVD.



Sure enough, it was almost immediately apparent that the movie was in German and we were supplied with subtitles. I decided not to invest too much into the viewing of the movie - much in the same way a farmer doesn't name the cattle he knows he will soon be butchering.



It was a slow movie and set in the cold and drab of Germany in the 1940's.


But I noticed that having to read every line, forced me to stay engaged and before long I was hooked.


The movie is a true story, I read that much of the story was uncovered after the reunification of Germany late last century. Sophie and her brother were part of a student movement speaking out against Hitler in 1943. Their plan to plant an incendiary leaflet in the university was foiled and they were arrested.


The movie centers on Sophie, and is made up mostly of dialogue between her and her captors.


She first denied involvement with the distribution of fliers, but once the evidence against her became insurmountable - she confessed and boldly defended her actions.


It is the tale of great courage.

We watched her - a young lady about the age of 21 - agonizing over the possibility of giving her life for something she believed in.

I was especially captivated by her attempts to pray during the ordeal. She always approached God with such reverence and humility, though it seemed that she received no demonstrative assurance of deliverance.

I am troubled by the softness of our generation. We get quite exercised over the slightest inconvenience... a slow check-out line, a confused order at the drive-through, a dawdling driver ahead of us... could real courage be found among us?

We are so attached to our luxuries that we now have begun to believe that we are entitled to all sorts of things - we consider them our rights! Things like access to the internet and medical insurance (not healthcare, mind you - but medical insurance) - are owed to us... or so we think.

I believe that this generation - like those before it - will one day be tested.
I hope that we will come to a place of courage.

In the movie, a grief stricken mother says good-bye to her daughter for the last time ..."I won't see you at my door again" she says. Her final instructions were, "remember" . . . "Jesus".

I'd like to think that at the last moment Sophie would have had a Stephen -type revelation; one in which the heavens opened. But it did not appear that she did. For some, faith is required all the way down to the wire.

My grandfather, who was a wise old sage of a preacher, once told me about the dying of his own father or grandfather (I don't remember which) who was a Christian believer. Yet he said, "a deathbed repentance wouldn't do for him ..." He said that even at that last moment, he was still battling self-doubt. He had to cross over armed only with faith in the loving God.

I believe he did.
And I believe that even when our trials are not life and death - God is there.

Especially when He doesn't seem to be.