The Carpenter’s Miracle is a made-for-TV movie with an Easter theme. That’s not to say it is a religious story because it really isn’t. It’s an engaging story meant for family viewing.
When a stranger pulls 12-year-old Luke out of a lake, he is near death. Josh Carey (Cameron Mathison) just happened to be fishing at the lake and was there to pull the young boy out of the water after he basically drowned. Yes, he did drown. At the hospital Luke was pronounced dead and when his mother Sarah (Michelle Harrison) arrives she is inconsolable. Josh is grief stricken as well. Even though he did not know the boy, he felt a closeness to him after trying to save his life. Sarah said her goodbye to Luke, and then Josh put his hand on the boy for his goodbye. Lo and behold, the boy who was dead for an hour suddenly comes back to life. Could this be a miracle?
Everyone in the town hears about what happened and soon Josh, Luke, and Sarah are on the evening news. Then a major network learns of the story and sends a reporter out to obtain an exclusive for their magazine show. As far as the network is concerned, this is the perfect story for their Easter show. The correlations in the whole story are amazing.
First, the town is Bethany, which is close to Bethlehem where Jesus was born. Josh’s initials are JC. And he lives in a decommissioned church. He is also a carpenter. Luke and Sarah are Biblical names. Luke was resurrected from the dead. So, the network wants to milk the story for everything they can get. And, face it, the parallels are remarkable.
In the meantime, Josh encounters more “miracles” in his life and cannot explain what is happening. Is he a true miracle worker or are they coincidences? The most important miracle, if you can call it that, is that the incident with Luke brought Josh and Sarah together and their new friendship blossoms into love.
“It’s hard to find entertaining, contemporary films that evoke the spirit of Easter,” said GMC’s Senior Vice President Barbara Fisher. “We needed an actor who had the ability to portray Josh’s kindness and emotional openness, as well as the masculinity and sex appeal to be a romantic lead,” she said about casting Cameron Mathison.
Barbara Fisher explained, “There are certain holidays that resonate for our audience and Easter is definitely one of them. We wanted to create an event around that and thought it made sense to do something original, which we’ve never done before. It fits in beautifully for a network that focuses on uplifting programming. But it also fits in because it is an entertaining story. We’re not into preaching to people or moralizing. That’s what’s so great about this story: it works for Easter but it would work as an entertaining movie any time of the year.”
GMC TV (www.watchGMCtv.com) is known as a faith-based destination for viewers. Their tagline is “Uplift Someone” and that is exactly what this movie does. You don’t have to be Christian or religious to enjoy this film, however. It is not religious. And, it will most likely leave you with a smile when it ends.
The Carpenter’s Miracle premiers March 30, 2013 with encore presentations March 31.
GMC TV can be seen in more than 58 million homes on various cable systems around the country, as well as DISH Network on channel 188, DIRECTV on channel 338 and Verizon FiOS on channel 224.
