My favourite musical is Oliver!, and, if you’ve seen Oliver!, you’ll know that the hero of the play is not Oliver but Fagin is the great comedy character, the great star of the show.
But in Charles Dickens’s original novel, Fagin does not live to the end of the story but he is condemned to be hanged for his crimes, and though we may not write it that way, we understand why Dickens had this: this is a man who’s murdered, who’s kidnapped children, and stolen from many, perhaps done even worse things, and we think it was right to deal with him.
But the scariest scene in the book is the night before Fagin is about to be hanged, when he’s just watching the clock go by hour by hour, nearer to his death, and there’s no hope. And then, worse than that, Oliver comes back in to plead with Fagin to ask forgiveness, get on his knees. “let’s pray together” says Oliver. But all Fagin has to say to that is, “Let’s find a way to get me out of this hanging.”
And yet, in that moment, Fagin doesn’t have to go to hell; he doesn’t have to die forever. He had to die, but not forever.
And the same is true for us. We have to die, but we don’t have to die forever. We can be forgiven in an instant. This is what the cross of Christ achieved. Why not make the most of the offer that Jesus gives?
