Les Misérables

I recently experienced the breathtaking musical “Les Misérables” for the fifth time (spread over three decades), this time in Zurich, Switzerland. I came home deeply moved once more – and should have known better than to gush about a work with such a title to my teenage kids. Thus my fourteen-year-old’s response: “Wow. A musical with the title “The Wretched” – exactly what I needed.” When I further pointed out that I had been deeply moved by this work already as a college student, she saw it as “yet another proof that you’ve always been ancient.”

This classic speaks to different audiences who see in it either a “philosophical masterpiece of the 19th century”, a “historical epic of the Enlightenment” or even “the most classic love story ever.” However, when I first read “Les Misérables” as a 20-year-old, I was deeply affected for a different reason: it was as if I experienced firsthand how the mercy of God touches a human soul like nothing else in this world ever could.

Valjean, the tragic hero of the story, experiences this mercy in form of a bishop who forgives him for a robbery. Instead of sending him back to the galleys, where Valjean has spent the past nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread, the bishop claims to have given the convict all items in the bag – to the astonishment of the onlooking police officers. “But why did you forget the candlesticks,” he asks Valjean and adds more valuables to his bag. As if the stolen and now gifted silver weren’t enough to underline the significance of what Valjean will learn that day.

It is an outrageous act of the bishop. It takes Valjean half the book to come to terms with this extraordinary compassion. And I’m grateful to be given this time as well – because I feel how nobody, neither the characters nor the reader, experiences such remarkable grace without being shaken to the core of their being.

Whether we are trapped on the inside or the outside, our soul reaches out for this grace and demands to know if such a grace can overwhelm even us. The answer came to me in a joyful whisper: “It can and it has – and ever since, you’re following the itinerant preacher from Nazareth and have placed your heart into the hands of this extravagant and merciful God.”

The rest of this famous story follows a life that bears the indelible imprint of God. Valjean helps, saves, loves, and surrenders himself to God with an intensity that shines through the yellowed pages of my Hugo edition. It seems that he who has experienced such mercy must pass it on with relentless urgency. Not as some form of compensation or “restorative justice”. Rather, Valjean’s intensity stems from an abandon that is scarcely known anymore, and that reveals a great contrast between Victor Hugo’s hero and our modern Christianity.

Valjean has none of the self-assurance of modern Christians, who are often too aware of their deeds and themselves. He does not live to work off his guilt and one day stand righteous before God. Rather, his life radiates that glow that also characterizes the stories of many Saints: an urgent, yet cheerful desire to live for others. Valjean has nothing to lose and all the more to give. He is tirelessly at work and completely at peace at the same time. His life has taken on a quality our modern times often confuse with success. But nothing could be farther from this God-state than such a worldly, pragmatic term.

Valjean does not practice self-realization; rather, he has lost himself in a far greater joy. He has no successes to show for himself, and views even the blessings his life produces for others with a strange kind of detachment and surprise. To attribute them to himself would be ridiculous and burdensome to him.

He will call himself “wretched” for the rest of his life. This has nothing to do with self-pity or false humility. Rather, it describes his and our position on the stage of this world – a world so full of brokenness that even the most diligent and sincere among us cannot escape its tragedy. He imitates Paul, who emphatically and joyfully – I dare say with relief! – calls himself “the least of all of Christ’s followers”.

I understand well that my teenagers are put off by a work with such a title. “The Happy” or “The Trendsetters” would be more Instagram-worthy than “The Wretched”. And how should I explain to them that this man, who called himself a “fool” like Paul or St. Francis, has shown the world more of God than any celebrity ever could? That he belongs among those who, through their abandon, have turned the world upside down?

Perhaps “Les Misérables” is another example of how certain truths are best conveyed through the arts. Art touches our souls in a quiet, profound, often unexpected way. And perhaps someone will soon write, compose, paint, or stage a “Les Misérables” for the generation of my teenagers; a work in which today’s art expresses what modern souls long for just like any generation. Perhaps we will find new forms to discover that the true heroes are found in the “Wretched” of our time.