Cool Hand Luke

by Jerry Fuller, OMI

• Cool Hand Luke is one of my favorite movies. Luke is an ex-military man caught cutting off the tops of meter posts. He's not much for authority. He had been a corporal in the army but was later busted. He was a good ole boy who respected honesty.
  In a Louisiana prison he offended the head prisoner, a tall, burly fellow called Dragline. Dragline called Luke out to fight on a Saturday afternoon, as the rules allowed. Dragline punched the stuffings out of Luke, but Luke kept getting back up and going back for more. Finally, Dragline picked Luke up over his shoulder and carried him off the field.
  Later that night Luke was playing poker with the other prisoners. By this time Dragline had come to admire Luke for his plucky spirit. Luke bluffed his way through a hand and won. Dragline scoffed at the one who called Luke's hand. "He beat you," Dragline said. "My boy Luke beat you...with nuthin'. He didn't have nuthin'. Just like today. He kept comin' back at me with nuthin'."
  Luke gave his sardonic smile, one eyebrow raised and drawled, "Yeah, well, sometimes, nuthin' is a cool hand." Dragline, who gave everybody a name in the prison unit, smiled, sat down next to Luke and said, "My boy, Cool Hand Luke."

I had always thought Luke was something of a Christ figure. The other cons were always rooting for Luke as he fought the authorities. He tried to escape twice and twice was brought back to undergo inhuman punishment.

• The last time Luke escaped, Dragline went with him. Luke entered an old church and started talking to God. "Hey, old man...you up there?" After a pause, he said, "Yeah...well, I didn't think so. I guess I'm a pretty bad guy. I don't blame you for not cutting me much slack. But you gotta admit you ain't dealt me any good cards lately."
  When Dragline came in telling Luke the "bosses" were outside, Luke went to the door, surveyed his captors standing in the rain, and called out a line that the warden had once shouted out after he had clubbed Luke in the head for answering back: "What we got here is a failure to communicate!"
  Immediately a shot rang out and Luke staggered back, mortally wounded in the neck. He was taken to the prison hospital over the observation of one of the bosses who pointed out that he should be taken to the big city hospital. Luke died on the way.

All Luke had going for him was a cool hand. He didn't cotton to dishonest authorities, just as Jesus did not. When Jesus and Pilate were sparring, Pilate said, "You are a king, then?" Jesus said, "Do you say that of yourself or has someone told you about me?" "I'm not a Jew," Pilate snapped. "What have you done?" "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus said. "If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would have seen to it that I was not handed over ... I have come to bear witness to the truth."

Pilate sneered. "What is truth?" It sounded like Luke's sparring with the unjust authorities all over again as Luke called out with his sardonic smile, knowing he had lost the game: "What we got here is a failure to communicate!"

Jesus and Pilate had a failure to communicate. Jesus knew it. He also knew that his besting of Pilate in their little tête-à-tête would warrant him a death on the cross. But Jesus was not afraid to die. He kept coming back at Pilate and all the unjust authorities in the Jewish priesthood with . "nuthin'."

"Nuthin'" in the eyes of the world. But in the eyes of God, Jesus had the coolest hand of all. All Jesus had was trust in the Father. Jesus was to rise from the dead and so prove to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Today we celebrate this king of kings whose "nuthin'" won him the redemption of the whole human race. Who could have ever figured? Only the Roman soldier at the foot of the cross, who must have been a good man. After following Jesus all the way up to the hill of Calvary, seeing him nailed to a cross and die, this centurion said, "Truly, this man is the son of God."

Yes, Jesus is the Son of God. It's a story unmatched by any story. The "nuthin'" Jesus kept coming back with was his complete trust in the Father. All Jesus knew was that he had to do the Father's will, which, as he found out, was to lead him to die on the cross. He didn't know it would be so painful that in the end he would cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But he did it.

But once he did it, all hell broke loose. The curtain of the temple was rent in two from top to bottom, ghosts came up from their graves and wandered through Jerusalem; and the apostles all fled. They had thought Jesus would be a king, but not this way. Not dying on a cross. No, somehow he would ultimately overcome those Jewish priests and the Roman authorities ... those "bosses." That's what the apostles and others were counting on. They didn't know how Jesus would do it, but they knew ole "Cool Hand Jesus" would come up with something. He was a world-beater, that one.

• In the movie, the last time Luke escaped, he sent back a picture of himself with two beautiful women, living the high life. This inspired the inmates and they pinned Luke's picture up. But Luke was brought back and beaten within an inch of his life, then thrown on the prison floor, where the inmates lifted him onto a table and kept saying, "We got your pictures, Luke. We knew you'd make them monkeys look dumb."
  Luke managed to shout to them, his face all bloodied, "I had those pictures taken. I wasn't living no high life. I sent them back 'cuz I knew you'd like 'em. But them bosses had me all the time. I ain't won! They got me! When are you guys gonna stop feeding off me!"

And of course, that's what the prisoners were doing. Using Luke to work out, to fantasize out their own anger and hatred with the authorities. None of them was man enough to stand up to the authorities, like Luke, or man enough to try to escape, as Luke did, because they knew they couldn't take the punishment they'd get once they were caught again.

The apostles also were using Jesus. James and John even once said, "Lord, grant that we can sit on your right and left hand when you come into your kingdom." They were talking about an earthly kingdom. Jesus caught them up immediately by asking them, "Can you drink the cup I shall drink?" In their ignorance they said they could, but they didn't know what a cup of suffering Jesus was talking about. Judas so used Jesus he handed him over, hoping this betrayal would trigger the revolution Judas was sure Jesus was contemplating.

In the end they all abandoned Jesus, just as his fellow-prisoners spurned Cool Hand Luke in the last scenes. Luke let the authorities think they had broken him. He let himself become butt-boy for the bosses out on the road during work. When the big boss told Luke to get his rifle out of the truck, Luke immediately jogged down to obey, smiling. A prisoner flicked his cigarette at Luke in contempt.

Only minutes later Luke stole one of the trucks and roared down the road with Dragline hanging on the side, laughing. Then the prisoners realized Luke had crossed the bosses again with his beaten act, and they cheered Luke.

Jesus knew all this kind of false hero worship. As John said in his Gospel, he [Jesus] knew what was in man and didn't need anyone to tell him about the nature of man." Jesus emptied himself, starting, as Paul said, on the throne in the heavens of heavens as the eternal son of the Father, then spurning all that glory that we can never imagine and taking on our human nature, our flesh and blood, out of obedience to the Father. He came down to earth as an infant, lived as we do, sweated, worked, tired, performed miracles, stood up to unjust authority until finally, like a slave, he died on the cross. And he was the Son of God!

We never saw Cool Hand Luke win a hand. After he was shot, he died. But we know that he won. The last scene shows Dragline, now back in prison, talking with his fellow inmates, and reminiscing about Luke. "Good ole Luke," Drag says. "You shoulda see him in that ole church. He wasn't afraid, not a bit, even with all them bosses with their guns out there in the rain. Even after he was shot, he still had that smile on his face. No, sir! They couldn't kill Luke. He was a world-beater!"

If anyone was a world-beater, it was Jesus. Who would have given Jesus a dime's worth of a chance of winning once he breathed his last on the cross? No one. But on a sunny Sunday morning, they came to the tomb, the women did, and there they found an angel sitting on the rock that had been rolled in front of the tomb. There they found an empty tomb, and the grave clothes that had been on Jesus rolled up, neatly wrapped. And they heard the angel's words: "Why do you seek the living among the dead. He has risen. He is not here. He goes before you into Galilee. Tell his disciples. There they will find him."

There is a definite Easter aura about this feast of Christ the King. He has risen! Yes! He is not here. But he goes before you. Follow him. You, too, will suffer, and you too will die. But the King of Kings, who won with nuthin' but a cool hand of trust in the Father, will show you how to have that same kind of trust. Jesus, your Cool Hand Luke King, will walk with you on your way and will raise you up with him on that last day. You, too, will be world-beaters, like your King of Kings, Jesus! And you will work out your royal inheritance as Jesus did, through suffering in love.

After Adam and Eve all we could say about us and God, our Father, was: "What we got here is a failure to communicate!" But now that Jesus, our King, our brother, our "Cool Hand Luke" has restored communications for us with the Father, we too share in his royal priesthood. And so we celebrate today the feast of our King of Kings, Jesus the Lord! And we rejoice in a real cool hand.

(Comments to Jerry at padre@tri-lakes.net. Jerry's book, Stories For All Seasons, is available at a discount through the Homiletic Resource Center.)