Perhaps one of the most fascinating scenes in the movie is one in which Randy shows Cassidy his scars. "He was pierced for our transgressions," Cassidy says to Randy. "By my wounds you will be healed." To a confused Randy, Cassidy replies, "The Passion of the Christ?" "Tough Dude," Randy gets her reference. "Sacrificial Ram," Cassidy smiles.

But sadly, Randy is only human, and as such, the wounds of his past and the wounds he keeps inflicting upon himself only seem to cut deeper with each passing day. "Your heart has been through a lot&ellips; you'd better take care of it," Randy's doctor tells him. Although Randy has spent his entire wrestling career building his body up and gluing it back together, we see that there is only so much trauma a body can endure. Although Randy may try to change and seek to restore the broken relationships of his past, his story reveals that truly turning over a new leaf and overcoming deep emotional wounds is not as easy as just waking up on the other side of the bed. And barely keeping his balance in the false world he has always relied on for value and unable to heal the wounds he must to find value in any other world, unlike Christ, the Randy we say goodbye to seems not on the verge of resurrection, but of death.

In many ways, The Wrestler is a film that takes us to a place most of us would never go. But as Director Darren Aronofsky has said, one of the most amazing things about film is "being able to connect with people you wouldn't normally think to connect with." Even though most of us will not identify with Randy's life as a pro wrestler, in his struggle to find value, belonging, and healing is a story with which any of us can identify. While most of us don't have a stage name, many of us have probably still faced the difficult realization that, in at least one part of our life, our value rests on an identity that is not our true self. While most of us have never been shot multiple times with a staple gun, and not all of us have endured such relational hardships as abandonment, the truth is that all of us have inflicted wounds and received scars that seem impossible to heal. But the good news is that while finding value and healing may truly seem to be a task beyond our own capacity, through the one who was already pierced for our transgressions and sacrificed for our sins our wounds can be healed and our lives resurrected. And that is a promise

Continue: 1 2