The Beauty of His Story: A Conclusion

It's time to wrap up our The Beauty of His Story series.

And I think it's fitting that this wrap-up is coming at Christmastime.

The most beautiful thing about this story God is writing is this: He has entered into the story with us.

He is not just some distant author setting a plot into motion and letting us figure out how to live within it. He's been at work throughout the story, providing light and hope, bringing freedom, teaching us how to be good. But He didn't stop there. He knew that this story needed a hero, someone who would rescue us completely from the opposing forces. So He wrapped Himself in human flesh and took on the role that no one else could play.

This is perhaps the thing that amazes me most about Christmas. The boundless God of the universe taking on the boundaries of humanness just so He could rescue a bunch of messed up people. He could have let the story play out without His help, but He knew we could never survive. Instead, Jesus came to be the hero, to fight for light and goodness and freedom and hope and life to win out over darkness and evil and bondage and despair and death.

So what does this tell us about our Author?

• He is good: The Author of this story is on the side of light and freedom and life. Although He allows evil to exist within His story, He is also at work to overcome it. He sent His Son to defeat it. He empowers us to fight against it. In all of this, we see His goodness.
• He is gracious: Throughout the story, we see countless examples of God providing freedom and life to people who have turned their backs on Him. It is true of every person who has placed their faith in Him. Instead of leaving us to our own devices, He graciously carried out a plan to rescue and redeem us.
• He is just: We have talked quite a bit about what will happen at the end of this story-- God will bring our Enemy to justice. Satan will be vanquished and suffer for everything he has done in his efforts to destroy us. In this story, the bad guy WILL lose.

Yes, there will be times when we feel we have no idea where the story is headed. Yes, there will be times when all the dark and evil things seem to be winning. Yes, there will be times we feel utterly without hope.

But we have to remember that those times are not the end of the story. We have to trust that the Author of our story is good. We have to believe that He is continually working to bring light and freedom and life into the midst of our darkness and bondage and death. He already sent us a Hero who defeated Satan. He already determined the end of the story. Regardless of what's happening around us, that will never change. Let that fill you with hope this Christmas.

The Beauty of His Story: Death & Life

So far we have established that Satan works to keep us from being good and to keep us in bondage.

The truth is, we're even worse off than that.

Because of our sin, we're dead (Ephesians 2:1).

Death

We see it in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate the fruit. God casts them out of the Garden so they wouldn't have access to the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:22-24). Prior to sinning, they had access to eternity (physical life) in God's presence (spiritual life). After sinning, they had an expiration date (physical death) and had to live outside of God's presence (spiritual death). 

Paul explains later (Romans 5:12) that Adam and Eve's sin brought death to the whole world. That includes you and me. We may be physically alive (until we die), but we're spiritually dead.

We're talking totally and completely dead here, folks. Not the "mostly dead" that Westley experiences in The Princess Bride. There's no magical chocolate we can swallow to reverse the process. The word used in Ephesians 2:1 means "dead; useless; ineffective."

So what can you do when you're dead?

Nothing.

And that's just what Satan wants. The best way to make you ineffective for the Kingdom of God is to make you dead.

Life

Here's the thing: when you're dead, you can't do anything to make yourself alive again. Just like being made good or being set free, being made alive is something God has to do for you.

And thankfully He did just that. He sent Jesus to die so we could be made alive.

Jesus' death wipes out our sin which is what causes us to be dead (Romans 6:23). When we choose to let God make us alive, our sinful self gets crucified with Jesus (Romans 6:6), wiping away its power and its effects in our lives, including death.

But Jesus didn't stay dead. He came back to life again. And because He came back to life, we get to come back to life, too! This means physical life in the future when we get to spend eternity in God's presence. But it also means spiritual life now. It means that instead of a life of slavery to the power of sin, we get to live a life of power from God, the power to be who He created us to be and do what He created us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

So here's the question: Are you alive or are you dead? If the answer is "dead," all you have to do is ask, and God will make you alive again. Life is a free gift because of what Jesus did on the cross. And I don't know about you, but I can't think of a better gift.

A Matter of the Heart

SPOILER ALERT: If you have not watched the December 11th episode of Once Upon A Time (titled "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter"), DO NOT read any farther... unless, of course, you don't actually watch the show and don't mind having it spoiled for you.

Last night's episode was the first in which the writers killed off a character we actually know and care about.  Or at least care about somewhat.  We haven't gotten to see much of Graham, the sheriff of Storybrooke, and what we have seen hasn't really been endearing (besides the fact that he's super attractive).  But this episode is all about him...  Last week, Emma caught him sneaking out of the mayor's house and (correctly) deduced that he and the mayor have been sleeping together for a while.  This week, Graham tries to explain that he feels nothing for the mayor.  In fact, he really feels nothing at all.  Except when he's with Emma.  Which of course leads him to kiss her (Guys: this is not an appropriate way to express your desire for a relationship... Use your words, please!)... But when he kisses her, he starts to remember who he really is.

Turns out, Graham is the huntsman the Evil Queen charged with the task of killing Snow White.  We all know how the story goes: he can't bring himself to kill her, so he takes the heart of a deer back to the Queen, who cuts his heart out instead when she discovers that he tricked her.  In this version, the Queen literally rips out his heart, but he continues to live.  He will forever be her "pet", controlled by her, unable to go against her wishes.  And if he ever dares to defy her, she will crush his heart and he will die.  In Storybrooke, this translates to a man who has no heart.  There's something beating inside his chest, but the emotions and feelings that reside in the heart don't exist for him.  He feels nothing.  And now he has come to the point where he is tired of living life that way.  He begins the hunt for his heart.

Meanwhile, Emma's anger at Graham for his relationship with the mayor seems to mask the disappointment and sadness she feels.  Although she won't admit it, Emma has developed feelings for Graham, feelings that make his actions seem like a betrayal.  As Mary Margaret points out, though, Emma has spent her life building up a wall around her heart in an attempt to protect herself from pain.  And while it's keeping pain out, it's also doing a good job of not letting love in either.

I find it interesting how clearly these stories portray two sides of a very real human problem: the death of our hearts.  How often do you find yourself wishing to feel... something... anything?  Those moments when hope and joy and love seem distant, when even pain would be better than the numbness.  Do we not realize what Jesus meant when he said the thief comes to steal?  Satan will do whatever he can to kill your heart by robbing you of hope and joy and love and any other feeling that might lead you to live the abundant life Jesus meant for you.  Like the Evil Queen, he will rip your heart from you and hold it in his control, squeezing just enough until you surrender to him.  His threats will leave you helpless, wondering why you feel nothing, and yet giving up any hope of something better.

On the flip side, how many of us choose to kill our own hearts?  As Emma does, we build up walls around our hearts to protect them.  We choose not to feel anything because it only leads to pain.  Our past experiences have taught us that we need to make sure our hearts are safe, so we stop trusting, hoping, wanting, loving.  We don't let anyone get close enough to hurt us.  And we certainly don't let our hearts speak the desires that reside inside them because we know all too well that those desires might never be fulfilled.  We choose to feel nothing and give up any hope of something better.

Here's the thing: God designed us to have living hearts!  Obviously we need them in the physical sense to pump blood through our bodies.  But we also need them to give life to our spirits and our emotions.  We were meant to feel and to have desires.  Without them, we aren't really living.  The good news is that we can find life for our hearts in God.  Whether your heart is dead because Satan has killed it or because you have killed it (or perhaps some combination of both), God can and will make it alive again.  He can wrench it from Satan's grasp and breathe new life into it.  He can break down the walls you have built around it and breathe new life into it.  One of the greatest promises in Scripture is the one where God promises to give us a new heart, a heart of flesh that is full of life.  And we can place that same heart, with all its feelings and desires, into the hands of a God who promises to protect and fight for it.  That doesn't mean we won't experience pain, but it does mean that we will experience healing when that pain comes.  The journey to find your heart and bring it back to life will be a difficult one.  But if you choose to take it, your Guide is wise and patient, and He will make the journey worth the taking.