Better Than All The Stories

Last week we had some visitors from Ireland staying with us. One evening, as we were putting the kids to bed, we all sat on the floor and did that day’s devotional from a book. One of the questions that day was, “what is your favourite Bible story?” One-by-one we went around, telling our favourite stories. Jesus walking on water. The disciples on the road to Emmaus. The Day of Atonement. Joseph and his brothers. Jesus calming the storm, etc. Then we finally got to my daughter (7 years old).

“What’s your favourite story Áine?”

“None of them.” Strange answer. She’s normally very enthusiastic about Bible stories.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the best bit hasn’t happened yet. We’ll be with God forever. So, when that happens it will be better than all the stories. That’s my favourite bit!”

Sometimes kids utter profound theology in the most commonplace, and yet novel, ways. What she said is true. And ought to be true for all of us.

The writer to the Hebrews spilled a lot of ink casting this same truth out to his readers. Here is a people facing persecution, tempted to deny Christ and return to the Jewish elements of their faith that they had left. How will he persuade them to keep marching on?

He starts by slowly building the explanation that Jesus himself is better than everyone and everything in the whole story of Israel, fulfilling all of the types and shadows of old. Their stories were never meant to be isolated from him. Then he takes the readers by the hand, and leads us through the hallway of men and women of old. Their forefathers. The heroes of the stories that they learned on their mother’s knee. The saints of old, whose tales had stirred their imagination and awoken a longing in their heart for the very things that these men and women sought after. These were those who walked with God, who failed God, who faced doubts, who sinned, who faced persecution after persecution, and yet who somehow, someway, managed to keep their head down and keep plodding on.

Because they sought a better ending.

Andrew Peterson wrote the powerful Wingfeather Saga series. It is a tale that certainly stirs a strange homesickness in the inner man. And it ends on a very poignant note, with anticipation growing in the heart, unanswered questions, and a hope for the future. But in a subsequent publication, about other stories in the world of Aerwiar, Peterson writes this in the foreword:

” “Are you going to write more Wingfeather books?”

“I certainly hope so” is my typical answer.

But if you’re asking whether I’ll write about what happened after the epilogue of [Book 4], the answer is a definite no. The canon is closed. I have my reasons, some of which are literary and some of which are theological, and they boil down to this: whatever hope or longing might have awoken in you when you finished the book is far better than anything I might have written.“

Certain movie studios and authors could learn from this. Peterson recognises something in us that longs for the completeness of a story, but resists selling us short on it. We all hate it when we finish a book series or movie series. We want more. But are more stories the point? Attempts at adding to closed canon have never fared well amongst original fans.

The point is that the stories awaken a longing that they cannot fulfil. The story is the guide, taking us by the hand, leading us through many a beautiful vista, dark valleys, and away from our homes, as strangers in a far-off land. These tales just reveal to us what was there all along, the endemic nature of the human experience and the explanation of why things are as they are. Then they sit us down on one side of the river, tell us to sit tight and wait, then with a hop, skip, jump, they disappear off into the horizon, leaving us gazing across the Jordan at a land that we have yet to reach. A place where the stories meet their end, their telos. A place where they even meet each other.

And I believe this is what the author to the Hebrews is doing. He is bringing them down those ancient paths, showing that these men and women themselves were longing for a far-off land, a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God. They waited, along with us, to receive the kingdom that cannot be shaken, though all the earth may be. He invites them to sit a while and listen, and to allow their hearts to be stirred into a deep groan-like longing. One that is not found by “rounding out the story” in the Jewish system, but one that leaves them standing on the edge of glory, aching for that which is to come.

Next week, our nation will head into a period of some political instability due to some governmental changes. Few are hopeful, some are fearful, especially some believers from Muslim backgrounds due to the possibility of an Islamic group gaining some power. Regardless of who comes into power, next week the country will be a very different place in terms of who is in power. What hope is there for a nation that can be so easily (and frequently) shaken? An unshakeable kingdom that we will one day inherit, though all else be stripped away.

But what can encourage people to look to that kingdom and to persevere in seeking it, when life as they know it may potentially give way beneath them? To allow the stories of the saints of old to lead our trembling hearts to sit on the edge of the world, side-by side with them, and to gaze out at the glory that our hearts long for, as their hearts longed for it. And with an ache in our hearts, and a shining light in our eyes, to pray with them, “Your Kingdom come.”

What awaits really is better than all the stories. For that is where they are leading us all along.