“Home Alone” Through a Christian Lens
If I were to mention the movie “Home Alone,” I am sure you will think of a little boy who had the house all to himself and needed to navigate some unexpected situations. I’ve only watched the movie a handful of times in my life, but it’s always been simply a Christmas movie. However, recently, I read something online arguing that it really is a Christian movie, and some of the examples they give truly do support that claim. So, I watched the movie again, but this time through a Christian lens.
The post mentions — well, spoiler alert if you have not watched the movie before — that it is at the church where Kevin seems to have a longing for reunion and reconciliation. It also speaks of the elderly neighbor as a Christ-figure, which I thought was quite neat. In the earlier part of the movie, the elderly neighbor is seen at the store with a wounded hand, which the post compares it with the wound of Christ. This same figure is also at the church when Kevin comes in. He was listening to his granddaughter practice singing “O Holy Night” and upon seeing Kevin, approaches him saying, “Merry Christmas, may I sit down?” just as the Lord comes to us and always asking if He could enter into our hearts, never forcing Himself on us. Then the man says something that made me think of Christ, “You can say hello when you see me, you don’t have to be afraid.” Be not afraid. We know that the man later saves Kevin from the burglars. Be not afraid, I am with you, I have come to save you. Old Man Marley might very well be a Christ-figure.
Another aspect of the movie that moved me was the mother and her desire to be with her son. After realizing she had left her son, Kevin, behind, Kate becomes frantic and feels like a horrible mother. Upon arriving in Paris she immediately goes to the pay phones and calls the local police department begging them to send someone to check on her son while asking the others to go through her phone book making calls. Then, she goes to the ticket counter and asks for a ticket back home only to be met with fully booked flights. She is relentless and refuses to give up. She agrees to wait at the airport for a standby seat. The rest of the family goes a relative’s home in Paris. Kate finally persuades an elderly couple to give her their tickets in return for money, airline tickets, and even the jewelry on her that the elderly woman seems to have liked. When she arrives in Scranton she is again met with no available connecting flights to final destination. Luckily a musical group offers her a seat in the truck they will be renting to drive home. When she arrives she runs into the home and screams for her son. He comes down and they embrace.
The mother is like the Good Shepherd, who is willing to leave behind the 99 in search of the one lost sheep at all costs. She stayed behind while the others went to rest. She paid a hefty ransom of monetary and material gifts, however much it cost. Even when she faced challenges, she kept going and never gave up, just as Christ never gave up when the Pharisees challenged Him or when He fell under the weight of the heavy cross on the way to Calvary because what moved them both was love, love for a child. The mother is also like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son who longs to see his son, and when he caught sight of him, he ran to him and embraced him. The mother ran to her son and hugged him, forgiving for him for how he may have misbehaved that got him sent in the attic in the first place, and asking forgiveness for leaving him behind. All was forgiven in that embrace.
A final detail that caught my eye was the timeline. If I counted correctly, it seems like Christmas Day was on the third day, the day the family was reunited, echoing the Resurrection, a new beginning, a new life, a new opportunity to live again as a family. Yes, “Home Alone” may not be found explicitly in the “Religious” section of the movie store, but it does ring some Christian themes and motifs. So, I do agree with the post I read that argues “Home Alone” is a Christian movie. It may not be advertised as such, but just as our Lord taught in parables, perhaps this movie is similar, teaching us truths about God and about the Kingdom through a medium and approach we might relate to and understand more easily.
On the surface Kevin may have been home alone, but he wasn’t really alone or lonely. God was with him and He placed people in his life that would make him know of His love and to show him that he’s never alone. Little Kevin put it best when he told Marley, “If you turn on the lights, it’s no big deal.” Christ is Our Light and He was born into this world of darkness, dispelling it and telling us, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid. I am the light of the world and I have already conquered the world. I am with you always, even until the close of the age.”
