This past weekend I wrote the Viewpoint article for the Mansfield News Journal. I've reproduced it here for my Church Requel blog readers. Enjoy!
The opening title sequence to the wildly popular Mad Men television drama shows a silhouetted businessman falling from the heights of the 1960s New York City skyscrapers. The man free falls for twenty seconds while the iconic, half-century old advertisements and slogans display behind him. The viewer never sees the man crash onto the sidewalk. Rather one senses a fall that never ends. In the midst of success and wealth all around him, the man has nothing to keep him from sinking lower and still lower.
The Mad Men fan would know the silhouetted businessman as the show’s protagonist, Donald Draper. He is the creative director responsible for many of the ad campaigns that define 1960s America. The newcomer to this drama would be excused for believing this television show to be about the highs and lows of Madison Avenue. The advertising world of New York’s past, however, is only the canvas upon which Producer Matthew Weiner tells his stories of the ever-falling Draper.
The opening sequence of the falling man, according to TV Guide, is ranked 9th ALL TIME for television show openers. What is it about this Vertigo-like falling man that so captures the imaginations of millions of viewers? Perhaps this theme of uncertainty and moral failure in the midst of success and accomplishment speaks to each one of us at the deeper level of the soul.
Jesus had a way of telling stories like this - stories that we just haven’t been able to forget, even after 2,000 years. He told stories of rich men who built bigger barns only to discover that life was much shorter than they thought. Jesus even put his own memorable exclamation points to his stories, like: “What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself?”
The story of Donald Draper, indeed the story of each one of us, is the story of falling and losing ourselves. The more we accomplish, the more we grab hold of what we think we want, the more we come up empty handed. Well not exactly empty handed. That’s the tragedy. When we finally grab ahold of what we so desperately want, we discover that it isn’t worth the sacrifice. It’s like holding onto a rope that is falling with us. No anchor. No solidity. Just more emptiness.
The genius of Mad Men is that the viewer can’t help but like Donald Draper. He’s not cartoonish. The viewer wishes him well. Is it possible, we wonder, that Draper might figure out that he really is falling? Could he grab hold of something more secure? Could his story be not just of falling and losing himself, but also of turning around and finding himself?
This was also the genius of Jesus’ stories. His teachings were never just about being lost, but also of being found. If we were to put it into the Mad Men opening title sequence, there would be more than the ever-falling silhouette. It would also be about the man’s descent turning into ascent, his lost soul becoming found.
This ever-falling man could never change the law of his own fallen character any more than he could change the law of gravity. Jesus, however, always told the story beyond the purely human perspective. The lost coin needed the sweeping lady. The lost sheep needed the searching shepherd. The lost son needed the loving father.
The ever falling Donald Draper needs the grace-giving and character-restoring love of Christ. The same is true for you. And for me. We don’t have the ability to stop our forever-fall. God specializes in changing the gravity of our souls. The Bible tells us: “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ... he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living.”
If you feel like the ever-falling man in the title sequence of Mad Men, maybe it’s time to ask Christ to throw you a rope. Stop the descent. Begin the rise. Know that your fall will stop, not because you’re holding onto the rope, but because He is.
