I have been listening to Les Miserables again. I also rented the 2012 movie for a weekend and watched it twice. One of the songs that stood out is "What have I done?" Jean Valjean sings it after a priest shows him mercy. The song sets the stage for the unfolding story.
What have I done?
Sweet Jesus, what have I done?
Become a thief in the night
Become a dog on the run
Have I fallen so far
And is the hour so late
That nothing remains but the cry of my hate
The cries in the dark that nobody hears
Here where I stand at the turning of the years?
If there's another way to go
I missed it twenty long years ago
My life was a war that could never be won
They gave me a number and murdered Valjean
When they chained me and left me for dead
Just for stealing a mouthful of bread
Yet why did I allow that man
To touch my soul and teach me love?
He treated me like any other
He gave me his trust
He called me brother
My life he claims for God above
Can such things be?
For I had come to hate the world
This world that always hated me
Take an eye for an eye
Turn your heart into stone
This is all I have lived for
This is all I have known
One word from him and I'd be back
Beneath the lash, upon the rack
Instead he offers me my freedom
I feel my shame inside me like a knife
He told me that I had a soul
How does he know?
What spirit comes to move my life?
Is there another way to go?
I am reaching, but I fall
And the night is closing in
And I stare into the void
To the whirlpool of my sin
I'll escape now from that world
From the world of Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean is nothing now
Another story must begin
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Herbert Kretzmer / Alain Albert Boublil / Claude Michel Schonberg
What Have I Done? lyrics © Alain Boublil Music Ltd.
I always found this moment in the musical, along with the priest's mercy towards the thief of his candle ware, to portray aspects of God's character and the heart-changing gospel in a beautiful and profound way. Amen.
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