Talitha Cumi

"While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” But overhearing[e] what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”  And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James.  They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement." Mark 5:35-42 

Talitha cumi. Little girl, arise. We went over the corresponding passage in Luke today in church, and the pastor jumped over to Mark just for these two words. Talitha cumi. Rather than the Greek which Jesus likely often taught in, he changes to Aramaic when speaking to this small Jewish child.

Pastor Scott suggested that these were likely the words which her parents would have used to wake her each morning. I have no idea how true that is, but it seems right. Scott talked about how these were the words that had woken her from sleep since she was born, but how they took on a new meaning and power when spoken by Christ.

And as he spoke, a scene came together in my mind.

Jairus, a devout Jew, a ruler of the synagogue, is off on a mission of last resort, to bring the rising-but controversial rabbi Jesus to his home. His wife stays behind, at the bedside of her dying daughter. And as her daughter slips further and further into the sickness, the mother whispers, "Talitha cumi." Little girl, arise! Wake up! Please, please wake up...

Where is Jairus? Where is the rabbi? The sickness grows worse, and again she whispers, "Talitha cumi." But her girl lies still, un-moving and un-hearing.

She waits, but there is no word of her husband. Perhaps Jairus could not find the rabbi. Perhaps the rabbi refused to come. And then she realizes that her daughter, her only daughter, is no longer breathing, and she begs, choking through the tears, "Talitha cumi!" And her daughter lies there, as though sleeping, but not, and there are no words that will wake her.


The Bible is full of pieces of stories, of which we often only hear one part, one moment in time, when Jesus breaks into the story to make it right. But in order to fully appreciate that moment, I think we often need to step back and look at the rest of the story. This was not an object lesson or a Sunday-morning sermon to Jairus or his wife: This was the moment that their little girl came back from the dead. Something worth remembering, I think.

Sanitization and "Christian" video games

Earlier today, I stumbled upon the kickstarter page for The Call of Abraham, a "Judeo-Christian Video Game" that markets itself as "Moral & Fun." Right near the top of the page is a quote that apparently sums up their mission: "I'm excited to see how [the game] will be able to stimulate greater interest in the Bible in today's youth."

Let's take a look at this game. First off, it claims to be an "exciting, top-quality video game that follows stories directly from the Bible." It will have "top-notch graphics" and "the action-packed storylines will keep players engaged."

But there's more! This game will include "Hundreds of characters,  ancient cities, and hours of engaging sub-plots." And in addition to "build[ing] their character and fac[ing] intriguing challenges," players "will also have the opportunity to enrich their knowledge of the history and cultures surrounding Abraham’s famous journey."

And how exciting will that be? "We’re actually following stories directly from the Bible with game play that you will respect. Of course, there is violence in the Bible, but even when the main character must kill a rabid wolf attacking Abraham’s sheep, or run into battle, there is always a just cause and you are only able to engage in activities that are honorable.  And on occasions where there is a better alternative to violence, you are rewarded for finding and choosing it."

I know that this game is coming from people who want to accomplish something good and meaningful. I know that their hearts are in the right place. But there are a ton of problems with this, and most of them boil down to the fact that video games are fundamentally different from any other kind of media. As it is, I don't ever see a game made with this mindset being successful. 

"Not ever?" you might ask. No. Not ever. Not the kind of game these people want to make.

I mean, first there's the fact that achieving top-notch graphics is going to be literally impossible with the resources these people have access to. Then there's the fact that in terms of gameplay, their game appears to be inferior in every way to most comparable secular games (in fact, they would have been much more successful simply making a mod of  Skyrim).

When you look at the elements of a game--graphics, gameplay, and story--they're only competitive with their secular counterparts in one of those areas. And even then, even in the area of story, I think they're crippling themselves.

See, they want a "Christian" game. They want a game that's pure, that promotes Christian values, where "you are only able to engage in activities that are honorable." They want a game that will not imitate the dangerous and vulgar world.

In essence, they want a game that is sanitary. And that's a problem when you're making something that requires interactivity as the core feature of the product.

GK Chesterton says that "to a Christian, existence is a story, which may end up in any way." He goes on to clarify:

In a thrilling novel (that purely Christian product) the hero is not eaten by cannibals; but it is essential to the existence of the thrill that he might be eaten by cannibals. The hero must (so to speak) be an eatable hero. So Christian morals have always said to the man, not that he would lose his soul, but that he must take care that he didn't. ...
All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads...The true philosophy is concerned with the instant. Will a man take this road or that? that is the only thing to think about, if you enjoy thinking. The æons are easy enough to think about, any one can think about them. The instant is really awful: and it is because our religion has intensely felt the instant, that it has in literature dealt much with battle and in theology dealt much with hell. It is full of danger like a boy's book: it is at an immortal crisis. There is a great deal of real similarity between popular fiction and the religion of the western people. If you say that popular fiction is vulgar and tawdry, you only say what the dreary and well-informed say also about the images in the Catholic churches. Life (according to the faith) is very like a serial story in a magazine: life ends with the promise (or menace) "to be continued in our next." Also, with a noble vulgarity, life imitates the serial and leaves off at the exciting moment. For death is distinctly an exciting moment.
But the point is that a story is exciting because it has in it so strong an element of will, of what theology calls free-will. You cannot finish a sum how you like. But you can finish a story how you like. When somebody discovered the Differential Calculus there was only one Differential Calculus he could discover. But when Shakespeare killed Romeo he might have married him to Juliet's old nurse if he had felt inclined. And Christendom has excelled in the narrative romance exactly because it has insisted on the theological free-will.

Free will. The "eatability" of the hero. The cross-roads. To Chesterton, that is what sets Christianity apart, and that is also a huge part of what makes a good game (at least, a game of the scope that Abraham is aspiring to). And that's just what Abraham is going to lack.

If you want a form of media that only allows people to make "honorable" choices, make something else. Make a movie, make a cartoon, make a comic strip. Make something that isn't built on dynamic interaction. It's still not going to be very good, but it's not going to be as bad.

But if you want to make a video game of that scope, of that scale--if you want a game where you can truly experience the human stories told in the Bible--then you have to give the player free will. 

Last thought, to give you a better idea of where I'm coming from.

 Just last week, I finished my play-through of Dishonored. It's a game where you play as the former bodyguard of the Empress: You're framed for her murder, you break out of prison, and you spend the rest of the game trying to rescue her daughter and put the daughter on the throne.

You need to advance through cities and palaces, finding the people who framed you and killing or otherwise eliminating them. In between you and them are guards--lots and lots of guards, who are doing the best they can to protect their leaders from the evil, traitorous bodyguard who killed their Empress.

You can do what I did, and remain hidden whenever possible. Take the guards out with sleep darts, choke them out from behind, and remove them from the picture without killing them: After all, they're relatively innocent. And at the end, when you allow the new Empress to take her throne, you pave the way to a new golden age. You showed her that there was a way to do what had to be done, without losing yourself.

Or you can take another approach. You can wade through rivers of blood on your way to the masterminds, indiscriminately killing the guilty and innocent alike. And as you proceed, the city will deteriorate. People will shrink from you in fear, they will attack you out of horror, and at the end, you will have shown the young Empress that people aren't to be trusted, and that the only way to rule was through fear.

Freedom and consequences. Good and evil. Dishonored puts you there, at the crossroads, and says, "Choose." And that's what makes it a good game. But more importantly, that's a much closer approximation to the reality contained in the Bible than what Abraham is going to achieve. And that's why even if Abraham is released, it's going to be a failure as a game, suitable only as a vaguely  interactive way of exploring the ancient Biblical world (a worthy goal, but one that could be accomplished with much less trouble).

EDIT: I want to clarify something. I do not want to be Chesterton's "uncandid candid friend; the man who says, 'I am sorry to say we are ruined,' and is not sorry at all." I don't take a "gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things." Nothing would please me more than this game succeeding. Nothing would please me more than to find that these guys were able to produce a game that is legitimately good in its own right, and Biblically relevant. That would be so cool. But I just don't see it happening: Not from the info on their Kickstarter.

EDIT: After failing to raise even 20% ($20,000) of their goal on Kickstarter, they renewed the project on Indiegogo. The advantage of Indiegogo is that even if you don't make your funding goal, you still get what money you've raised (unlike Kickstarter). And to date, after a full week of funding, they've received $825.

If anyone affiliated with the game ever reads this, listen: don't blame this failure on "the world" or "the culture." It's not that "the world is opposing you," or that "the culture just isn't ready for a Christian video game of this scale." It's that your game looks like a bad game, and your pitch is awful. Your game just isn't competitive with mainstream games. You've either got to seriously step up your game, or completely shift the type of game that you're making.

Unsatisfied

CAUTION: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS CONCERNING THE PREVIOUSLY AWESOME, NOW TOTALLY DUMB AND STUPID TV SHOW DOWNTON ABBEY:

Anna and I just burned through all of season 3 of Downton Abbey. As the season prepared to enter it's final five minutes, Anna and I were leaning back on the couch, marveling at how smoothly they'd wrapped up the season... and then Matthew, who had been as baller as baller could be throughout the entire season, and whose wife had just given birth to their first child, got into a fatal car accident, and WHAT THE HELL, MASTERPIECE THEATER? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

At least, that's what I was yelling at my t.v. during the final minutes of Downton Abbey's last episode for almost an entire year.

It really threw off my groove. I was prepared for a smooth, happy finale a la the greatest finale in the history of television. Everyone had gotten their happy ending: Even Thomas had redeemed himself (as much as could be expected). If the episode had ended even two or three minutes sooner, it would have been freaking amazing.

In short, I am unsatisfied.

I am unsatisfied with how the writers of the show chose to end their season. I am unsatisfied that their long tradition of ultimately rewarding virtue ended in the senseless death of a new father, a faithful husband, and frankly an absolutely baller dude.

I know the arguments: I went through my writing classes at Biola hearing them over and over again. How good stories reflect reality, and how reality is fallen. How a happy ending is a sure sign of naivete, and how a sad ending is a mark of intelligent realism. This sad attitude of cynicism has pervaded modern retellings even of explicitly "escapist" literature (in the Tolkien sense of the word), so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find it here.

But I was surprised. Up until this point, the world of Downton Abbey had been one of a very "Proverbsy" nature: Good is rewarded, and the traps of the evil are sprung upon the ones who set them. But the end of this season seems to be a surrender to the prevailing "realism" of the age: The cynicism that would end the gospels with the crucifixion, that would rather end the book of Job with our hero waiting for an answer that never comes.

Granted, the point of this post was stronger when I thought that Downton Abbey was only going to be 3 seasons long (I must have gotten it confused with my beloved Sherlock). But to end the season with a shot of blood slowly snaking past the dead, open eyes of a new father, while his wife expectantly awaits his return, rubs me the wrong way.

Because yes, that may be what "real life" is like. But that is not nearly the same as reality. The reality is that the wail of Ecclesiastes has been drowned out by the gloria of the angels. The tomb of Christ marks a mere intermission, where the old scenery of Act 1 is cleared away to make room for Act 2.

Downton Abbey has done a lot of amazing things (in fact, I'm already planning a second post talking about some those things), but in this case, it failed. It settled for reflecting "real life", at the expense of reality. The show may redeem itself in the season to come, but for now, we are left with a shattered estate, a shattered marriage, and a multitude of shattered lives. And I am unsatisfied.

Grace in Television

Why is it that there are certain television shows that, despite sharing common themes, could hardly be more different:? How I Met Your Mother and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, for example, initially struck me as being, on the surface, quite similar. A group of friends in the big city, focusing on their entanglements, romantic and otherwise, with a heavy emphasis on bar life… At first glance, they’re practically the same show! And yet my wife Anna and I just finished watchingHIMYM’s entire run for the second time, whereas I’ve only ever watched 5 episodes of Philadelphia, and each one left me feeling kinda sad.

Dr. Who and Torchwood is another, even more striking example.Torchwood is actually a spin-off of Dr. Who, and the content and setting is, in many cases, very similar. But Dr. Who takes place in a universe full of wonder, where the utter impossibility of a happy ending only makes that inevitable happy ending more marvelous… whereas Torchwood, despite taking place in the same universe, ended its run by taking an unwilling child from the arms of his screaming mother and literally torturing him to death in order to save the planet from aliens.

Finally, the story of the recent film adaptation of Les Miserables has a great deal in common with the 1967 classic Cool Hand Luke. A man is put in prison for a frivolous crime, punished far beyond reason, under the control of a cruel taskmaster, trying again and again to escape but each escape only makes things worse and worse, until finally the main character dies with a smile on his face. Despite these similarities of plot, the tone and atmosphere of the films could hardly be more different.Luke declares the doctrine of a pointless, cruel world, the best response to which is unflagging coolness; the world will kill you eventually, but best to mock it till the very end. Les Miserables, however, despite death and hopelessness on a scale far exceeding the plights of a single man, reminds us again and again that suffering is not meaningless, that our actions can shape the world, and that death is not the end.

But what is the cause of such division? Why does Ted’s (seemingly endless) adventure of meeting his wife enthrall me and Anna, whereas we can hardly make it through an episode of Philadelphia? Why is the Doctor so very happy, and Jack so very sad? Why is Luke left with only a legacy of mocking coolness, and why does Jean Valjean sing triumphantly of the light awaiting the wretched of the earth?

The answer, I think, is a sense of hope. Philadelphia recognizes the essential sadness of existence; Torchwood, the horror and cruelty; andLuke, the essential unfairness and futility. But the others dare to go further. There is deep sadness in HIMYM, but the very title and premise of the show promises that at the end, all of this sadness is redeemed. There is horror and cruelty in Dr. Who, but it is always overcome. And life is unfair to the wretched and downtrodden of France… but to call their struggle futile is to entirely miss the point.

This is, of course, why some prefer shows like Philadelphia. A show about broken, tired people, doing the best they can in their broken, tired lives; sometimes it’s enough, often it’s not. There is no hope for happiness: Not real happiness, anyway, nothing beyond the momentary pleasure that sex and alcohol can provide. And to those who feel that this hopelessness, this futility, accurately reflects reality, thenPhiladelphia is doubtless to be preferred to naive, childish shows likeHIMYM.

They have a point: this is, indeed, how life used to be. The bar life ofPhiladelphia is eerily reminiscent of another, much older account of the hopelessness and futility of life.

But no more, as of 2,000-odd years ago. Because that’s when Love Himself came into the world to give us hope again, to heal our wounds and redeem our souls. We now live in a world that, though broken, will be fixed; though sorrow is real, it will be wiped away; though pain is all around us, it will be ended. That is the world that HIMYM, Dr. Who, andLes Miserables portray, and for that, I love them.

They recognize hope. A hope of redemption, of an undeserved and unexpected happiness waiting for those who only need to reach out their hand and accept it. A hope, at bottom, of a grace that goes beyond the cold, hard, “facts” of existence, that defies the “realism” and cynicism that so attracts our culture today. These shows remind me that Christ came that we might have life, have it to the full, and that we might celebrate in living. And God bless us, he even brought the drinks.

Twisted Stories

Oversimplification. Exaggeration. Outright fabrication. Where will you find all this? Aside from the obvious answers, I’d like to add a couple more: Church sanctuaries during the Sunday morning sermon. Bible studies. Youth groups. I can’t count the number of times a Bible story has been subtly (or not so subtly) tweaked to better convey a point the speaker wishes to make. I’ll bet you’ve had similar experiences: Maybe it’s David, the master of bare-handed bear and lion wrestling,  portrayed as a tiny weakling (think Tiny Tim without the crutches), or maybe it’sthis dude who’s been crippled his entire life being held up as a world-class example of whiny whiners. A complex individual who really existed is twisted, warped, and reduced to a single characteristic (which may or may not even be true), all for the sake of making a point.

There are a variety of reasons to avoid this sort of scholarship, but here is a big one: it’s dishonest. No sermon or lesson, no matter how good, is ever worth dishonesty, especially from the pulpit or another position of biblical authority.

The point being made is often a good point. It could be that “Man looks at the outside appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Perhaps that complaining doesn’t change anything. It might be anything, any true and excellent life-tip, theological insight, or what have you, except for one thing: a point is no stronger than the premise it’s built on. If it occurs to your listeners that you’ve built your point on false statements, then your entire lesson is weakened, almost to the point of irrelevance. Using a false or exaggerated statement to make a point does not make the point stronger, it merely introduces a crucial weakness into your previously strong lesson.

Let’s go back to David. When people hear that David was out “watching the sheep,” they imagine a little kid playing a harp or something while watching fluffy white sheep bounce around the pasture. Maybe the kid is singing, maybe he’s teaching the sheep to dance, I don’t know. But let’s hear David’s account of his life as a shepherd.

“Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and killed him. Your servant has struck down lions and bears.” 1 Samuel 17:34

Bears, people! And lions! David killed lions and bears with his bare hands! That means that any attempt to imply that he is weak, or puny, is not just a misleading exaggeration: it’s a blatantly false statement.

And here’s the important bit, the really, really important bit: David was a real person. He really lived. He was really a shepherd, the youngest son of Jesse.  He really did throw down with bears and lions. He is not a parable. He is not an object lesson. He is not a made-up character in a made-up story.

That’s the real problem: we like to think of them as parables. We like to think of David and Peter and Gideon and everyone else in the Bible as characters in stories that are told primarily for our benefit. And so we can easily fall into the trap of telling a story not to get at what’s really there, but to get at something we want to talk about; since the story doesn’t naturally convey what we want to talk about, we have to twist the story a bit, make it fit.

And so we oversimplify, and say that Gideon was too busy throwing himself a pity party  to do what God asked him to do. Or we exaggerate, elevating one characteristic of a biblical character far above its proper place, because it’s easier working with caricatures than people. Or we outright fabricate and paint a picture of David that’s entirely devoid of bare-handed death matches with wild animals.

In doing so, we slowly weaken the relationship the Bible has with reality. After all, we’re apparently not worried about what actually happened in the Bible, so why should our audience be concerned? If David and Peter and everyone else are just fables, characters to be twisted for our benefit, what can we really learn from them? The Bible becomes just another story divorced from reality, not suited for consultation in our day-to-day lives. But if David was a real person who did what God required of him, if Peter and Gideon were real people placed in difficult situations–then we can learn. Then the Bible can give us hope and comfort in times of trouble. Then, and only then, the Bible is alive, “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.”

People or Caricatures?

Quick, watch an episode of The Office. What did you see? Did you see a normal office building, populated by individuals just like you and me? No, you didn't. You saw an office building full of caricatures: "A picture, description, or imitation of a person or thing in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect," according to Google dictionary. Dwight's characteristic is weirdness, Jim's is awesomeness, Kevin's is oh so many things. They are too exceptional to be real: They are comic and, at times, grotesque exaggerations of what a weird person is, or what a funny person is. They are not real, and we are very rarely tempted to think of them as such.

Now listen to a Bible lesson about Peter, or Gideon, or that crippled guy in John 5, or--very often--Jesus himself. Was the sermon about a real person, or just a caricature, created to prove a point? In my experience, Peter is often either a bumbling idiot (if the lesson is about Gethsemane or the Transfiguration) or a prideful fool (walking on water, proclaiming his loyalty to Christ). Recently I heard Gideon described as "throwing a pity party," focused on nothing but feeling sorry for himself. That crippled dude in John 5 is the butt of everyone's joke. And Jesus can be caricaturized (apparently this is not a word: It should be.) in any number of ways.


Here's the thing: While this can be useful in proving a point, it can backfire very easily: By reducing a complete person to a caricature, you weaken the Bible's relationship to reality: The stories are no longer stories that happened to real people, in the real world. Peter is no longer a person to relate to, with fears and hopes and dreams, and a love for Jesus but a weakness of will: He is a buffoon to be laughed at, or a fool to be pitied. Gideon is no longer a human being much like ourselves, in a situation we often find ourselves in, as the least of his household, surrounded by idols: He is a self-absorbed twit who inexplicably fails to see what is about to happen. These stories of real people and real events, preserved by divine providence for our benefit, are now something much more akin to an episode of The Office, where not-quite-real things happen to not-quite-real people.

I myself fall into this same mistake sometimes. It's much easier to speak of a caricature, especially if your desire is to amuse (as mine often is). But it is not good. We literally cannot afford to turn the people of the Bible into caricatures: It is difficult to relate to caricatures, and even more difficult to learn from them. The Bible is the story of God working through, talking to, and saving people: And if we do not see that, then neither will we see its relevance for us.

The Most Interesting Man in the World

There's this strange belief, that many people share, that for a character to be interesting, he must be flawed. This reasoning caused the director of the Lord of the Rings movies to rewrite Faramir as merely a crappier, less-manly Boromir, irresolute and treacherous, instead of the paragon of virtue, a reminder of the Numenorean blood that still flowed in Gondor, that we find in the books. It is also this reasoning that played a large role in utterly destroying the terrible "adaptations" of the Narnia books. Peter becomes the whiny, petty, utterly selfish would-be king, picking fights in railway stations and engaging in pointless power struggles... and then in the next movie the exact same thing happens to Edmund. All in the name of making the characters interesting by making them flawed.

As if Lucy is not infinitely more interesting than Edmund, or Faramir less interesting than Boromir. 

And we forget (or ignore) that Aslan is easily the most interesting character in the series.

And we forget that of all men, Jesus is easily the most interesting.

Jesus. The only sinless man. The only person who does not have the "fatal flaw" demanded in Greek tragedy. The man who, according to all the secular writers of the world, should be by far the least interesting. And yet he is not. This un-flawed man has not ceased to be talked about in the 2,000 years since his death. He has shaped history, shaped the world, buildings have been built and destroyed, nations have formed and collapsed, laws have been passed and repealed the world over... because of this man. Because of this one, perfectly good, un-flawed, most interesting man. 

The problem is that people view these good men as though their actions were predetermined. "When a character is always good," they say, "You always know what he is going to do." But you do not know. You view "good" as a static state of being. But it is not. It is active, ever more active than evil, which is often a mere slipping into the easier and more "natural" way. Evil is the passive state: Evil accepts the temptation to take the ring, evil accepts the temptation to be whiny and petty and demand the respect you think you deserve. But good... good is active. Good must be active, for it to be good. Good must reject the impulse to take the ring to Osgiliath. Good must actively push against the easy decision to lapse into selfish pride. You can conceive of the Dos Equis man (the 2nd most interesting man in the world) saving an orphanage full of kittens while riding on a flaming motorcycle... it is utterly inconceivable that he should do the easy thing, the "flawed, dynamic, interesting" thing, and let it perish. 

Every moment in the life of a good man is full of struggle and battle: Every battle a battle of life and death, and every victory a heroic victory. It would have been the easy, natural thing for Job to "curse God and die." And yet Job would be a far less interesting man if he had done that. It would have been the easy, natural thing for Jesus to turn stones into bread at Satan's request, or to bow down to Satan and inherit the world without the pain of the cross... and yet the story of Jesus would be far less interesting, and the world would not even have noticed his passing. 

Chronology

I've got three partially finished notes sitting in my drafts, but none of them are coming together. So here's an easy one.

I can't count how many times I've heard people remark how crazy it is that when Jesus tells the disciples "follow me," (Matthew 4:19, Mark 1:17), they follow immediately. It's so crazy, they say, because the disciples have never seen him before. They don't even know who he is! All it takes are those two words, and off they go! Such faith! Wrong. They have seen him before. They know who he is. In fact, when Jesus comes to them on the shore of the lake, they are already his disciples. Remember that Matthew and Mark do not stand alone: they are part of a greater framework, a framework that includes Luke and, more importantly (for this discussion), John.

Let's look at the very beginning of John. Jesus is hanging out where John the Baptist is doing his baptisms and crying out in the wilderness and all that jazz--specifically, in Bethany (1:28), which is nowhere near Galilee. John sees Jesus and says his classic line, "Behold, the Lamb of God." Two of the Baptist's disciples hear this and probably figure that "Lamb of God" sounds way cooler than "The Baptist" (although, now that I think about it, "The Baptist" could be a good name for a professional wrestler). In any case, they follow Jesus and ask him where he's staying. In 1:40, we learn that one of those disciples (of the Baptist, at this point) was Andrew, the brother of Peter. The other unnamed disciple is most likely John (not the Baptist). Andrew gets Peter, there is an implication that John also got his brother, and the next day Phillip and Nathanael are called.

Here's the important bit: Andrew and (probably) John are pointed to Jesus by John the Baptist, who is not in prison at this point. Andrew brings Peter, there is an implication that John brings his brother, then come Phillip and Nathanael. So at least five, but probably six, disciples, before John is put in prison.

Now let's look at Matthew and Mark. Matthew 4:12 specifies the time of the following events: "Now when [Jesus] heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee." Mark has the same qualifier in 1:14. A few verses later, Jesus meets Simon  Andrew, James, and John on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and tells them to follow him. This is after John had been put in prison, meaning that it has to come after the events of John 1. That means that at this point, the disciples have already made an explicit commitment to follow Jesus. They are not following an unknown man, or even a rabbi that they've heard of but never seen or spoken to before. They are already his disciples, which is why they immediately drop what they're doing and follow him.

I may go more into the specifics of the likely chain of events later, but this note is already a little long. Remember: the gospels aren't true in the way that a really good story is true. They don't just tell us something true about human nature, or about God, or about the world. They tell us a true story--a story which actually happened. We cannot afford to shrug off apparent inconsistencies as "not important." We must be ready and prepared to demonstrate the harmony of the gospels--the harmony not only of ideas, but of actual events.

What began as a thought at one in the morning...

            When C.S. Lewis wrote Narnia, he was operating from a simple question: what might a world be like if Christ, having taken the form of a man here, took the form of a lion there? With that in mind, at one in the morning I asked a different question: what does the person of Jesus Christ do to our perception of God? (Note: this no longer has anything to do with C. S. Lewis)

Karl Barth, because he’s awesome, and most of the things he says are awesome, finds a special significance in the name “Emmanuel,” or “God with us.” He sees it as primarily a statement about God: “that it is He who is with them as God.” But it is also a statement about us: “It tells us that we ourselves are in the sphere of God. It applies to us by telling us of a history which God wills to share with us and therefore [it tells us] of an invasion of our history—indeed, of the real truth about our history as a history which is by Him, and from Him and to Him.” He goes on to say that ultimately, “God with us,” the primary act and being of God as He relates to us, finds its fulfillment and completion in  Jesus Christ.

Pat of what I think he’s saying is this: Jesus Christ changes everything about our conception of God. He has to change everything.  He changes how we think about God in Himself, and he changes how we think about God in relation to us. Any way of thinking about God that attempts to exclude Christ from the picture will be horribly incomplete.  The God we worship must be the God who came down to us not only as God, but as man. The God we serve must be the God who served us. The God we fight for must be the God who fought for us, and the God we die for must be the God who died for us.

Any God which does not share this sense of patience, of suffering, of condescension, of ultimate faithfulness in the face of ultimate faithlessness, is not our God. Any God who is high without once having chosen to be low is not our God, any God who is strong without once choosing to be weak is not our God.  Any God who is too proud to stoop down to his people is not our God.

This all came up as I was thinking about what to write. As to how this relates… if Jesus Christ is the defining thing in our knowledge of God, that means he is the defining thing in our knowledge of the everything. How, then, am I to write a complete story yet leave him out? That would require a world in which very nearly everything is fundamentally different: and inevitably for the worse. Thoughts?

Story and History

Every Bible translation I have ever read and enjoyed (NOT the Message) has read in a slightly different way than newspapers or novels read. The wording and sentence structure is ever-so-slightly archaic and formalistic, which is, of course, deliberate on the part of the translators. I wholeheartedly approve of this, because it gives the Word of God a majesty and solemnity (not the bad kind of solemnity--in fact, I may write a note on this later) even in its literary structure.

Unfortunately, this method does have some drawbacks. For instance, because it doesn't read like any story we have ever read, we tend to forget (especially if we are already familiar with it) that it is, in fact, a story. When we read in The Hobbit how the respectable Bilbo Baggins, with neither warning nor explanation, is suddenly forced to have no fewer than thirteen dwarves over to tea, we recognize that this is an absurd situation. We realize this and feel Bilbo's surprise alongside him because we read it as a story, an account of things that have happened. (The fact that such an event did not, technically, occur does not impact our ability to act and feel as though the story is real) Even without Bilbo's subsequent nervous breakdown, we realize that this is something quite out of the ordinary. However, when we open the Bible to the calling of the first disciples, we aren't surprised at all when Peter and Andrew "Immediately... left the boat and their father and followed him." We pass over this with barely a second thought, although we would have not only a second thought but a third and fourth as well should the same thing have happened with Bilbo and Gandalf.

My point: that elusive, slippery thing that so often evades my grasp. We don't read the Bible as a story. I was originally going to say that we don't really read it as a record of things that have happened, but that's not true. We do read it like that. But we don't read it as a record of actions, actions committed by real people, real individuals with real personalities. If we did, we would wonder about the inner motives, emotions, thoughts, that would cause two people to leave their livelihood, the only thing they had ever known, and follow a relatively unknown rabbi.

As my friend Kyle just said, the Bible doesn't take place in its own little world. It's not separated from the "real" world. The people in the Bible are real people. They aren't acting a play or reading from a script. When they do something, that action, just like everything we do, is accompanied by a host of inner thoughts, motives, emotions, that usually aren't explicitly expressed in the text. But just because it's not expressed in the text doesn't mean it's not there.

This is important. By reading the people in the Bible as real people, we can make the things we read more practical, more applicable to everyday life. If we recognize that Andrew and Peter leaving their father was a risky gambit, that they had no guarantee of even making a living, much less making a difference, then we can apply that the next time God calls us to take a risk.

So, this is a rough introduction-type-thing to a bigger project I'm beginning to work on, focusing on Peter. I hope to post another note on Peter soon.

Stories

"‘It is not from the making a story that I shrink back, O Stranger,’ she answered, ‘but from this one story that you have put into my head. I can make myself stories about my children or the King. I can make it that the fish fly and the land beasts swim. But if I try to make the story about living on Fixed Land. I do not know how to make it about Maleldil. For if I make it that He has changed His command, that will not go. And if I make it that we are living there against His command, that is like making the sky all black and the water so that we cannot drink it and the air so that we cannot breathe it. But also, I do not see what is the pleasure of trying to make these things.’" C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

I'm an English Writing major. The writing professor at Biola also teaches a writing class at a secular college nearby. He's told us that the stories from his Biola students contain far more cursing, violence, and (non-graphic) sexual situations than the stories from the secular college. At first I didn't understand it. I don't write stories like that. I don't like to. But now it think I know why. As Christians, we believe in the Living God who died to save his dying people. We believe, ultimately, in a world where good will win in the end. We believe in the ultimate "happily ever after." But the world doesn't. And some Christians are so afraid of being dismissed for their foolish optimism, their hope in things unseen, their belief in hidden happy endings, that they have become cynical. Almost in self-defense, they have decided to tell it like it is. To keep it real. To let no hold be barred in the portrayal of the gritty, hardcore, dog-eat-dog world known as "real life."

And in my writing classes, I've been told I'm too optimistic. I like happy endings. They may not be perfect endings, and there will be struggle and hardship and all the things that make a good story, but I want my happy ending. I want my stories to be reflections of the ultimate story, which I believe is this: good will win in the end.

I know that, quite frequently, bad things happen to (admittedly only relatively) good people in this fallen world. I know that the good guys often lose. But I also know, as all Christians do, that there is hope. There is light, not just at the end of the tunnel but here and now. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and "in him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Life has come to the dying, and the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, which stands as a brilliant bulwark against the dark. Is this not an amazing story? Is it not a story worth telling and retelling, in different ways and different forms?

I mentioned the ultimate story a couple paragraphs ago. I've thought about it a lot. The Story. Capital letters. The Story of which all other good stories are mere parts and reflections. And that story is a story of redemption. None of the Gospels end with the crucifixion. The Bible itself does not end with Acts, or even with the letters that Paul wrote from prison, awaiting execution. No, the Bible ends with Revelations, with a vision of the triumphant coming of the King of kings and Lord of lords, a vision of "happily ever after."But I'm not supposed to tell stories like that. They aren't "real life." But I say differently. What do you mean by "real?" For that matter, what do you mean by "life?" I don't know the answer either. but I want to convey more than the apparent reality of this fallen world in my stories. I want to convey Truth, not just "things that happen." And I still don't know how to do that.