The StoriedHope Series, Part Three
(Just now joining us? Check out Part One and Part Two first.)
“My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself. What succor, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story? What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney? When the lightning strikes shadows on the bedroom wall and the rain taps at the window with its long fingernails? No. When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don’t expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.”
There’s quite a bit I disagree with in this quote from author Diane Setterfield, but she was write on one thing for sure: stories have the power to comfort us.
Through stories we are reminded that there is hope, that the best part may be just around the corner, and that others have already faced the problems we find in our lives.
But even our favorite stories end when we close the book. Even the best stories can’t give us a hope that will support us through daily difficulties and disappointments.
The hope we’re wired to long for is found in a Story. But this Story is no lie.
The Bible as Story
In the classic Jesus Storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd-Jones writes that “the Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story…It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life!”
A few years ago I heard a novelist talk about the formula for a good story and how it always involves a certain sequence, specifically toward the end of the book. After the character has been seeking resolution to some problem for awhile, the author makes it feel like they’re about to get their goal. We can just taste the victory as we read, watching this character struggle toward success that is just out of reach. But then everything falls apart, leading the character to what one author called “the dark night of the soul.” Then, after it looks like all hope is lost, the character finally achieves the victory at last.
That’s when it hit me: This is the story of Jesus. Ingrained in every story we write – whether the author believes in Jesus or not – is the story of Jesus.
Throughout the Gospels we read that Jesus is God. He is our rightful King, yet He walked among us unrecognized by most of humanity – and certainly not accepted as royalty. Yet one day the crowds seemed to finally grasp who He was. They shouted royal praises about Him, laying their coats on the ground for His borrowed donkey to walk on. Even His enemies, the spiritual leaders of the community, realized their resistance would be futile: “The world has gone after Him,” they said at the first Palm Sunday. It would seem that Jesus would soon be King at last.
But just a few days later He entered his own, literal “dark night of the soul.” He prayed alone, late at night, that what was about to come would not come.
But it did. The next day was Good Friday. He was killed as a traitor, as the crowd that had a few days earlier declared Him king now demanded his execution.
And He was dead. The sky grew dark – even though it was still afternoon.
Where was this hope of His Kingdom? Where was His promise of eternal life? Where was His assurance that He was indeed God’s Son? His followers went into hiding, so convinced that the story was over.
But then three days later, there was an unprecedented plot twist.
Jesus’ tomb was empty. Death couldn’t keep Him dead. The grave couldn’t prevent His victory.
Jesus is alive.
This is where we find the hope we’ve been looking for!
The Bible as Hope
To quote Sally Lloyd-Jones again: “You see, the best thing about this Story is – it’s true.”
Here is where we find the hope we have been so desperately searching for. Here is where our seeking ends.
This is true hope. Hope that endures. Hope that really satisfies our longing. Because this hope is different from any we’ve encountered before. As my pastor said in the early days of this coronavirus pandemic, “But know this—‘hope’ is not what we know hope to be, most often, in our language. It is not a likelihood of something we desire to happen. ‘Hope’ in Scripture is a certainty.”
A certainty.
We can be certain that we have hope because Jesus really did offer Himself in our stead. He really did promise that we can have life forever, no matter what difficulties we experience in this life. And He wrote a story so we could have forever hope.
“For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4, emphasis added).
We Need Hope
Every human being on earth longs for hope. Hope that things will get better. That our lives will count. That the story isn’t over and will have a happy ending.
We have this hope, storied in all the pages of our Bibles and lived out daily in all our stories. It’s like it’s even ingrained in us, driving what kind of stories we seek.
The greatest news in all the world has come to us as a story. And now all of our stories follow its pattern.
Today when you go to class or work or do chores or find a story to enjoy, remember that if we are in Christ, we are living stories of hope. No matter what we face today, we have this hope:
“For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe” (1 Timothy 4:10).
