Have you ever wondered why it is that we seem to love a good story? Almost everyone has found themselves, at one time or another, smiling at the creative words spun by a relative or friend. Why is this? Why is it that our hearts beat with excitement when they are enveloped in a tale of love or one of good and evil? Why do we seem to cling to movies that draw us into another world and books that make our imaginations soar?
We cling to stories where love, justice, and all that is good prevails. We melt when Cinderella lives happily forever after with the Prince. We cheer when Harry Potter defeats the evil embodied by Voldemort. When the Ring is destroyed in Mount Doom, we momentarily believe that evil can never defeat goodness. Why is it that we tend to love good and hate evil? Why don’t we love evil and hate good? The answer to these questions lies at the core of our existence; good versus evil is a thread that ties together all of our longings, feelings, and desires.
We are in a story.
The Story of stories. And an epic one at that, one spanning all of eternity.
Many affirm that there is an author to this human story; these people call themselves religious. Some believe that this author has told the Story to us. Jews and Christians believe that he’s done this through the Bible. Your longings for adventure, suspense, mystery, righteousness, honor, romance, and the defeat of all evil are not randomized chemical reactions. A random mass of cells and chemicals did not combine by chance to provide you these longings.
They were written on your very soul.
The Bible paints a tapestry of eternal history. It weaves together a quilt composed of the stories of old and even of those yet to come. These are the words and stories that a man once said were "written on our hearts". And it is these stories that breathe life into everything we think and do. In our daily adventures we reflect the storyline of the much grander tale we are a part of.
In the beginning, so our story goes, there was nothing but goodness in the heavens. God and the spirits with him dwelt in pure love. Our hearts can still hear the echoes of this bliss. It arouses that ecstatic feeling you get when you listen to a song that beauty itself seems to have written. And we see images of heaven all around us. Look at a couple newly in love—so fresh, innocent, and filled with a simple sense that everything is right in the world.
So in the beginning of our story, love and peace reigned completely. But in the midst of this tranquility, disharmony brewed. Evil rose, and the appeal of majesty and power beckoned the hearts of some of the angels to turn against the One who had done nothing to them but love. One, in particular, rose to lead the rebellion. He was called Lucifer.
There was an epic battle, truly of cosmic proportions. Millions of spirits fought. Many fell. Lucifer himself rose to fight against the greatest of the angels, the one they call Michael.
But good prevailed then.
Lucifer was defeated for a time and was banished to meddle with Earth. A third of the rebel angels were banished out of heaven. For those remaining victors in heaven there was a somber longing for things to be back the way were, for things to be set right again. This was not the way it was supposed to be.
And then our beginning began. There was an explosive act of creation. Earth. Water. Plants. Animals. Then people. Everything was good; everything was in perfect harmony and perfect peace.
Until, that is, we turned just as those before us had. Having it all, we grasped for more. Having love, beauty, peace, and power, we still weren’t satisfied. We too lost it all. Our perfect paradise on Earth was destroyed; this beautiful world that began to decay. We lost the good, and replaced it with evil. We lost health and replaced it with pain. But, worst of all, we lost love. We gained selfishness, greed, lust, and hate. But we lost love.
And so for thousands of years, that was the story. There was no more. Was that it? Good had prevailed in the heavens, but it seemed less than a complete victory. There seemed to be more to the story; the sweet smell of resolution was not to be found. This is the way the story hung for quite some time. For many years, all hope emanated from this incomplete tale. The cries of the people exclaimed that there must be more. Our very hearts tell us that this is not how the story is supposed to end.
You may have heard this story before, but maybe only from the outside, only as a reader of a great fable. But the author of this tale has constantly been whispering something to us from the very first day we were created. The whisper is that there is more. The story is not quite over yet. The whisper that says, “I love you.” Christians claim that this whisper crescendoed into a roar. This roar was that of a Lion. This roar was the voice of Jesus.
Two thousand years ago, murmurs began circling in both worlds. A man was born in a way unlike any other. To the evil spirits, there was something utterly intimidating and frightful about this man. He did things no man had ever done. He spoke with the authority of the one who had banished them.
To those in heaven, this man represented the hope of redemption. For they had seen him. They had known him. He was the One who created them. He was the One who loved them. This man was God himself. This was the One who would turn the page.
And so he came to us.
He lived. He taught. He loved like no other. He came to tell us the greatest thing ever told: God loves us.
But the glory of his life was to be found only at its end. Being beaten, whipped, punched, and mauled he climbed willingly onto his cross. The evil spirits mocked him, wondering why he had given up. The angels in heaven mourned, unsure that of what was to come. Stretching out his arms to be nailed to the beam, only he understood how profound the act was. Only he knew that through his death he would end the slavery of evil, once and for all.
It was the victory of victories. It was the hope of all hope. To detonate the love of God for everyone, he died. Absorbing all evil, all pride, all hate, all selfishness, and all rebellion, he lifted his head and with his last breath exclaimed, “It is done.”
And then it was. And then the page turned.
From that moment on, everything changed, everything turned. After thousands of years of moving away from resolution, the ship of human history turned and began heading back towards it. We were far away from everything our hearts desired; perfect love, peace, and justice were unfamiliar. But, through his death, we could now turn and see them once more. God, and all that He is, was near.
With the victory won, heaven began to creep back into the fabric of Earth. Hard hearts began to crack. The reality of heaven became visible to the hurt of our world. Justice, hope, love, and beauty began to re-emerge in the hearts of many. Victory was on the side of all that is good.
It is here that we now live. Slowly, we drift towards the end of the story, which is really more of a beginning than an end. You see, when this story closes with all beauty restored, with everything put right, and with love abounding everywhere, a new happily-ever-after will begin. The prince saves the princess. The evil will be completely destroyed. The new season of love and beauty will bloom. And the One who did it all will hear the majestic ballad of victorious love.
And when this happens, a new story will emerge. This story will have no end. This story will have no conflict, no climax. Pure beauty and love will reign forever and ever, beyond even the life of time itself.
And so, I ask the question again, “Why? Why is it that our hearts are pierced when we witness betrayal? Why do we love adventure and mystery? Why do we stand in awe at worlds of fantasy? Why do we cry tears of joy when a bride slowly walks down the aisle, her eyes locked in on the man she desires above all others?”
We love stories because they show us that we live in the Story. We have seen betrayal by Lucifer and his followers, and have shared the deep hurt and disappointment that surged through all of heaven. We have also betrayed, biting into the fruit of treachery, and have heard the words of the One we let down.
We crave the adventure of the battles within the heavens. We root for the good guy to defeat the bad one because that is the way it happened in the beginning. We yearn to live for something dangerous enough to die for because One did that for us.
Mysteries stimulate us now because they ripple through our story. Why did Lucifer rebel? Why did we? When will the story end and how? Though the covers of the book are firmly in place, and the last page of the story is written, there are many before it that still must be filled.
We love the magical and whimsical worlds of movies, books, and nature because ours was once that way. We stand in awe at the majesty of a mountain, because part of us remembers the paradise we once lived in.
And we also know love. We cry at a man sacrificing all to be with the one he loves, because One has done that for us. We love our children more than anything else because One has loved us that way, whether we realize it or not. We give honor and praise to all that is noble because some part of us feels as if there is majesty somewhere, and something or someone worthy to be respected and honored.
In the words of the rescuing prince we hear the words of the King who rescued us. In the kiss of a lover we feel the kiss of the cross. Every feeling that we have in our heart is a small tremor of the grand Story we find ourselves in.
The better you know the Story, the more you know yourself. This Story is truly yours, for you are at the heart of it all. Evil is still fighting against you. God is still fighting for you.
But the ending of this Story has already been settled through the deathblow of the cross.
Beauty wins. Goodness wins. Love wins.
Happily-ever-after is already within us.
So knowing that, we march on, filling in the final pages of this story with justice and redemption and love. When all is finally put right in this world, the final page of this first story will be finished.
And it is then that our next story begins.
