The Count of Monte Cristo
Clip: – Chapter 22, 1:35.53
In this clip from The Count of Monte Cristo, the Count attends the 16th
birthday party of a neighboring count’s son. The father of the son is to make a
toast to mark the passage of the son from boyhood to manhood. But he tells
his wife to make the toast for him as he has to conduct business with someone
else at that particular moment.
The Count of Monte Cristo makes an eloquent and moving speech about
manhood, using an experience in Rome that he was a part of with the 16-year-
old.
This “Rite of Passage” is just one example of many in history and our world
today for boys who become men.
1. What are some other “Rites of Passage”?
2. Why are these “Rites of Passsage” important?
Jesus Christ grew up in a Jewish household. He would have experienced a “Bar
Mitvah” that marks the passage from boyhood to manhood. We are actually
told a little about Jesus’ “Bar Mitvah” in the Gospel of Luke.
Luke 2:41-52
1. What parts of Jesus’ “Bar Mitvah” do you particularly notice?
2. Could fathers use something like this in their own son’s lives? Or they son-
in-law’s lives?
Jesus had a more significant “Rite of Passage” that speaks to the heart of every
man.
Matthew 3:13-17
There are three aspects that are very important in the Baptism of Jesus –
especially for men and particularly for fathers.
1. Jesus was (and is) a man.
2. Jesus is a son.
3. Jesus has a purpose and a transcendent cause.
(my thanks to Robert Lewis for these points in his book “Raising a Modern Day
Knight).
