Know-Love-Obey God

Fridays are always good, for storytime is at 10:30. We go eager-hearted to the library and sit cross-legged-cozy on the carpet. Librarian-storyteller settles into the big, billowy armchair, fingers linked and resting on her lap, like a book waiting to be opened. Three picture books, partially open so that they can stand, welcome us from the knee-high table next to her. Other picture books, stacked with covers obscured, tease us into wondering, Which stories are those?

Sometimes the stories are fairy tales. Why do I love fairy tales? Perhaps because they are so…ridiculous! Cinderella—even her name reflects her dust-and-ashes existence—oppressed and trapped in her stepmother’s and stepsisters’ malice, jealousy, insecurity-turned-arrogance, suddenly and magically gets to go to the big ball! A minute ago, that very stagecoach was a pumpkin; yes, it was. One morning, she is hopeless and in rags. Less than twenty-four hours later, the prince is in love with her. Amazing. Incredible. Ridiculous. Beautiful. I love it!

J.R.R. Tolkien, master storyteller, wrote a fascinating essay, “On Fairy Stories.” What he calls the eucatastrophe (prefix “eu-” meaning “good”) of a fairy story is the “good catastrophe, the sudden joyous ‘turn’…a sudden and miraculous grace.” This is where the fairy tale shifts from “I am hopelessly doomed; there is no way out” to “I am rescued!” Every good fairy story, says Tolkien, contains a eucatastrophe.

That is what I love about fairy tales—the eucatastrophe in every one.

But the impossible fairy tales . . . what are those, compared to forgiveness?

Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you;

BUT you were washed,
BUT you were sanctified,
BUT you were justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

In the Epilogue to that essay, Tolkien says that “the Gospels contain a fairy story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories…and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History…The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the Incarnation…Legend and History have met and fused.”

Those stories of Cinderella rags-to-riches, too good to be true—those stories are nothing compared to The Gospel of Jesus Christ. The story of God, it is a fairy tale too good to be true…but it is. Beauty instead of ashes. Liberty to captives. Gladness instead of mourning. Our sins red as scarlet, but He has washed us white as snow.

Beloved, this is a Bible reading tool. As you spend time with God in His word today…this week…remember that it is the story of God. And that you are in it.

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(Related: John Henry Jowett, Things That Matter Most, Chapter 7 entitled, “The Magic Touch.”)