What's Really Important

One of the most moving scenes from Stephen Spielberg’s Academy Award-winning movie Schindler’s List occurs at the end of the movie. During WWII, Oskar Schindler, a German businessman, made a deal with the Nazis to employ Jews to work in his enamel works factory in Poland and to pay the wages they should have earned to the Nazis. All was going well for both Schindler and the Nazis until word came down from the Nazi High Command that these Jews were to be transported by rail to a concentration camp at Auschwitz to be exterminated.

By this time, Oskar Schindler had learned to love his Jewish workers, so he made a deal with the local Nazi officials to purchase their continued services and then transport them to Czechoslovakia to work in an ammunition plant he was starting. Schindler began to make a list of the names of the Jews he wanted to take with him and ended up with more than 1,100 names on the list — hence the name of the movie, Schindler’s List. Schindler spent almost his entire fortune literally purchasing the lives of those Jews.

Upon hearing the announcement that the war had ended and that a cease-fire would begin at midnight, Schindler realized he had to flee for his life because he would be considered a Nazi war criminal by the Allies. As he was preparing to leave, he looked into the faces of the Jews who had come to say “Goodbye,” and realized their number was so very small when compared to those who had died in the extermination camps. At that moment, he began to weep uncontrollably and said: “I could have got more out. I could have got more… If I just… I could have got more… I didn’t do enough.” Schindler then looked at the car that he was about to drive away in and said, “Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people.” He took a gold pin off his jacket and said, “This pin — two people… two more people… at least one… at least one more… one more person… I could have a person… gotten one more person and I didn’t. And I didn’t!”

At that moment, Schindler realized that possessions are unimportant when compared to the lives of people.

There is a great lesson here for Christians. One day, we will stand before the Lord and weep over the possessions we bought because we thought we couldn't live without them. On that day, we will realize that some of the things we spent our money on could have been used to send another missionary overseas, build a church building in a foreign land or have printed more Bibles, tracts and literature.

Most of us get so consumed with material things that we forget there are souls hanging in the balance. This Christmas season, please remember what is really important!