“We all owe a death to God”

The recurring theme of the film The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 is from John Travolta’s repeated line, “We all owe a death to God.”  Surprisingly, undergirding this theme is the possibility of Denzel Washington’s character of finding redemption for a crime he allegedly committed.  There is perhaps no greater reality than that of death.  It is a looming fate which all people, young and old, know of, but few know how to deal with.  How we deal with death may influence how we live  life.  A destiny of corruption and deterioration casts a shadow on the meaning of life and an evaluation of the sort of persons we are.  Perhaps in a universal sense, we all search for redemption because we know we’re imperfect, corruptible and indebted people.  “Do you pay your debts,” Travolta’s character asked Washington’s.  Death is the debt to be paid, a fundamental reality we grasped in light of eternity.  But eternity escapes us.  And perhaps the gospel makes sense in this way – it speaks to the core human understanding of our plight.  It speaks of redemption and an altering of destiny.  And in the end, it simply comes down to a question of, do we pay our own debts or do we accept someone else’s offer to pay it for us?