His Story

“Tell me a story, Bobbie, please, please,” my little sister would beg, after we had been tucked into our twin beds and the lights were out. Telling stories had been my idea in the first place, but it was starting to wear thin, usually because I was too tired to think of anything very exciting and would rather have had someone tell me a story instead. A lot of times, our mom would let us listen to “Fibber McGee and Molly” or “The Great Gildersleeve” on the radio after the lights were out which gave us the captivating stories we both seemed to crave. (For those of you born after 1948, I’m sure you have no idea what I am talking about, but believe me when I tell you there is nothing like lying in the dark imagining the people in those radio plays, with the sound effects of footsteps and doors opening and closing.) Well, now that I’ve dated myself, I’ll go on with today’s story.

One of our first family stories had to do with my sister, Pam, calling me Bobbie. We really don’t know how or why she started doing that, but she did it until we were about 7 and 10. One time my grandfather bought a new plant for his yard called the Rose of Sharon. Pam ran into the house to inform everyone that Popsy had just planted the Rose of Bobbie.

Our family was big on nicknames, especially the southern branch who hailed from Tennessee. My mother’s parents were Mutts and Popsy. Her twin sister, Jane, was dubbed Nane Nane. These were all my doing as the first grandchild. But there were some doosies that came before me. When my mother and her twin were about seven, they went to the train station with their parents to welcome their aunt, Kate, arriving from Memphis. As the train pulled into the station, the parents said, “Look twinnies, here comes the choo choo. Well, you guessed it, Aunt Kate was known forever after as Choo Choo.

I could go on like this for many more pages, but the point is, every family has stories, stories that give meaning to their lives, past, present and future. These stories are passed down through generations and become traditions and part of the fabric of their family’s life. We need stories. Stories help us make sense of the world. They help us make sense of our lives. We all have our own stories, some of which we’re probably not particularly proud of, but we all sense that our life is telling a story, and we sincerely hope for a good outcome.

I remember when I was going through a particularly difficult time in my life , I would say to people, “I feel like I am living in a novel, and I can hardly wait to see how it’s going to turn out.” Have you ever lived that way? Interesting, isn’t it. And that’s the best light I can put on it

One of the things that has happened in these modern and post-modern years is that the world has lost its story. If there is no story, there is no meaning to hang your hat on. If there is no right or wrong, if everyone is allowed to have his own opinion on what is good and what is not, if everything can be figured out through our enlightened minds and managed through technology and science, then where do we find the meaning behind the universe? What is the meaning of our existence? How do we explain the devastation and degradation we see around us and the seeming futility of our efforts to make things better?

We say each man can decide what is right in his own mind, yet everyone knows what is wrong when it happens to him—when he is the injured party. So, even though we like to say it’s all relative, ultimately we do have to admit that there is a standard by which we all measure good and evil.

What would you think if I told you that God has told us a story? Of course, he used people to write it down in language so that we could understand it. What is this story? It is His story. It’s called The Bible. Now before you think, ”Oh that,” and discard this as another religious ramble, let me just tell you a little bit about this story.

First of all, it’s made up of many stories, stories about people and God’s efforts to reach out to them and love and guide them as his children. But as you can imagine, this is not easy. These pesky creatures keep insisting on doing things their own way and they get themselves into all manner of troubles. Hmmm. Sound familiar, so far?

He tries everything, first of all, he gives them a beautiful garden-like setting in which to live, and what do they do but mess it up. He gives them everything they need, and all he asks is that they not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You see, he wanted to protect them from knowing evil, but oh no, they decide they want to know everything God knows and be “like God,” so they eat away. Right away they are sorry, but unfortunately, it’s too late. They know what they know and there’s no going back, so now they have to hide their nakedness, and guilt has entered the picture. And you can be sure, it’s not going to get any better after this.

Later, their oldest son tries to show off before God and gives a sacrifice out of pride, while the younger gives a true sacrifice of love, and so because God favors the second sacrifice over the first, the first son kills the second. Okay, so far we only have four people in all creation, two have disobeyed and are living with guilt and the third has killed the fourth. We’re not off to a good start.

The reason this story is important is that it tells us how and why bad stuff entered the world. It tells a story that gives meaning to what we see around us today. And what we see today is a world that should be perfect in every way. We can see that perfection in nature, in the workings of the cellular structure of plants and animals, in the workings of our own bodies. But it is perfection that has gone bad. Something happened. The architect created a beautiful building but it has been bombed, and now even in its damaged state, we can see the perfect beauty that was intended.

The Bible then goes on to tell many other stories, settling finally on a family descended from a man named Abraham. Many times in the Bible we see God searching the earth for a faithful, honest man, a man he can trust, a man who will trust him. He decided he had found that man in Abraham and decided to guide and direct him and, in the process, bless him and his descendants forever. This is the beginning of Judeo-Christian history.

In succeeding generations, God found other men, not perfect men, but men who remained loyal and tried to do his will. These were people he could use, and did use to make himself known to the world, because that was what he was really after—the world—all of us, Jews, Gentiles, everybody. He finally did it through the perfect man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Now, how was it Jesus was able to be the perfect man you might ask, well, it’s because it was God himself in disguise.

That’s the really amazing part of the story. God realized the only way he could truly reach human beings was to become one, and so he did. He allowed himself to be born as a helpless baby and to live in the world as a human being in order to talk to people on a level they could understand, about who he is and who he created them to be. This is almost an unbelievable story, but it’s the story Christians believe. They believe it because it makes sense in light of the whole story. It makes sense on every level, psychologically, spiritually, intellectually, even physically.

Now you might say, “But why did Jesus have to die? Couldn’t God have brought people into a relationship with him without that?” No, he couldn’t. If God is a just God, then there had to be some payment for the evil that had occurred. Not only that, there had to be a way to pay for the future evil that would occur. How could a pure and perfect God just say, “Well, that doesn’t matter.” It matters a lot. What if someone purposely injures you or someone you love. Do you just brush it off? There is a standard of justice in the universe that says, no that’s not right. So, basically, for justice to be served, someone had to pay. And because God knew that the only person who could pay perfectly was the perfect person, He paid the price himself.

How does this story give meaning to our lives today? First of all, it describes us and those we see around us. It tells us why we sense that the world isn’t as it should be. It also explains why we find this rebellious spirit within ourselves. We all want to be the God of our lives, and it explains why our efforts are often so futile. But it also gives us a way to get past the sin and guilt that we know we harbor—a way to start fresh every day, recognizing and confessing our failures and receiving God’s loving forgiveness because of his son who died for us.

There’s also, for those who have managed to read this far, a really terrific ending to this story. It doesn’t end. We live forever with our creator and savior in a really beautiful place, where we finally are able to become all that we were created to be and to do.

I must tell you, I really like this story. I like living in it and knowing it applies to me. If you’re interested in learning more about this story, I would highly recommend reading C.S. Lewis book, Mere Christianity. It’s a delightful read. And if you’re really serious, you might just open a Bible and start reading God’s story. It’s fascinating. You could also join a Bible Study or go to a church. They tell parts of this story every Sunday and you never know what you might learn.