Javert, like many of us, is a passionate man. His mission throughout the movie is to bring justice and to uphold the law. He becomes increasingly frustrated as the repentant criminal Jean Valjean escapes. However, Javert does not see Valjean’s repentance but only sees his sin. This is demonstrated numerous times throughout the musical version, in Javert’s own words, “You must think me mad! I’ve hunted you across the years. Men like you can never change, a man such as you…” But I cannot think of anything more revealing than when Javert refers to Valjean as, “24601,” which is Valjean’s prison ID, rather than Valjean’s name.

Now, Valjean was a criminal, but he was repentant, and even better, he became an upstanding man in society, but above all, he was a believer in Jesus Christ. It was the gracious act of a bishop that caused this change in Valjean, and he gave his soul to Jesus Christ. As Christians, we understand this on a very personal level. We know that we have been changed by Christ. We see this directly in Colossians 3:9-11, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” However, we often are in the same position as Valjean, when he often says, “Who am I?” Because the truth is that we are a mix of both Valjean and Javert. We love God’s grace for ourselves, but we are less passionate about pursuing justice for someone else. This truth has been loud to me as my own pastor did a series on Jonah this previous summer. In this series, we see that Jonah loved God’s grace for himself, but wanted wrath and justice poured out on the Ninevites.

At one point in the Les Miserables story, Javert had come to a point where his own life was spared by Valjean, and later, when Valjean needed mercy, Javert granted it. Javert was stricken by this. He says, “I am reaching, but I fall. And the stars are black and cold… as I stare into the void, of a world that cannot hold. I’ll escape now from that world, from the world of Jean Valjean… there is nowhere I can turn, there is no way… to go on!”

How often have we all felt like this? How often have we made others feel like this? We pursue justice as we have been given mercy. We are passionate about the Law, well at least what we consider to be the Law. We are consumed by justice and forget to focus on the grace given to us. Javert did not recognize his own act as an act of mercy, but of injustice on his own part, and sought to pay the penalty of letting a criminal go. Javert was focused on the Law, where there was no hope.