A Jealous God and the Phantom of the Opera

I remember watching the 2004 film version of the “Phantom of the Opera” in an IMAX theater at the River Park Edward’s Cinema. The Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtrack was etched in my mind and expectations, because it was one of the few CDs I owned and had treasured for so much of my childhood. I remember permanently “borrowing” the soundtrack from Auntie Andrea, along with a few others that I still prize, such as the Amy Grant collection, and the “My Best Friend’s Wedding” soundtrack that I loved before I was even allowed to watch the film.

I remember loving every moment of the Phantom of the Opera film, and crying when I got home that night. And crying the next day when I was telling my friend Bobbie about it. The movie struck such a chord with me. Now, almost six years letter, I think I know why.

I have mixed emotions about the story line. On the one hand, the Phantom adores Christine, a beautiful woman that he has trained and watched and protected and cared for and loved for years. He embodies the ideal man that a narcissistic and immature young woman (like me at the age of 19, when I saw the movie) longs to marry. He lives for Christine. She is his world, and he would do anything to win her.

Give me a year or two of maturity, and I would have a totally different perspective. The Phantom does not love Christine. He is obsessed with owning her. He is possessive and selfish in pursuing her in such a pathological manner. He wants to own her and keep her as his own for his own sake, not hers. At that point in my life, I was learning what it is like to be an object, or an idol to someone else, and how devastating and destructive obsession can be.

So, I no longer see the story as a love story, although it is tragic and beautiful. But what made me cry at 19 continues to haunt me to this day. I cried because I couldn’t imagine anyone caring about me in the way that the Phantom was focused and set on Christine. It seems like all of the great romances are based on the notion that two people meet and fall in love and can’t live without one another, and wouldn’t want to live without the other person. So to watch two hours of a man deeply affected by and desirous of Christine made me sad because I couldn’t imagine being in a relationship or marriage where I was the object of such affection and devotion.

However, as I was pondering and considering the attribute of God that we call “jealousy” in English, the Phantom of the Opera came to the forefront of my mind. God is jealous and zealous over me. He loves me and has pursued me and called me out of darkness and into His light. He has covered and protected, provided for and cared for me attentively and lovingly. He is devoted to me; He has called me by name, and I am His (Isaiah 43:1).

God says through Hosea, “I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her…In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me “my Husband”, and you will no longer call me “my master”… I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.” (Hosea 2: 14-20)

So, God’s jealousy over me is His requiring my undivided heart and devotion, just as He deserves. He is a perfect, Holy God and he has a stringent requirement for His own. He calls us the people of his possession. (Deuteronomy 7:6).

But the Lord Jesus Christ is jealous over ME. Any analogy comparing God and the Phantom is grossly incongruent, but the reason why the Phantom’s devotion to Christine made me cry is because it tugged on an aspect of my Humanity that can only be met in God and in communion with him. It is beautiful and meaningful and glorious and MIRACULOUS that God would be jealous over me.