I don't have much to write, really, but I wanted to pass this along, both as an excuse to have something in my blog that doesn't have to do with girls, but also because its worth sharing and I hope you enjoy it.
Telling the Story
by Arthur S. Peterson (Andrew Peterson's brother)
In Paul’s letter to the Hebrews he refers to God as the author of our faith. That implication, that God is writing something, crafting a story, spinning a great yarn across history has always fascinated me. I grew up a preacher’s son in small churches and got my gospel in small Sunday servings, and always my favorite portions of my father’s sermons were the stories. He has a great booming voice, he speaks with authority, and he knew the impact of the subtle and the dramatic upon an audience captivated by words. I’d be in the back pew where the cool kids sat, scribbling notes to the girl down the row while trying to hide my inattention behind the suited shoulders of whomever sat in front of me, then I’d hear the beginnings of a story and I’d tune in for the show. Dad would tell Bible stories, he’d quote quaint illustrations, passages from books and scenes from movies--anywhere he found revelations of God in literature he’d relate them from the stage with the rhythm, meter and hushed sincerity of a great storyteller.
Stories. Stories were real. They were exciting, and my father could spin them with conviction. They stood out from those fundamental words of our Christian lexicon that fly so often from pulpit to pew, those words that had worn me numb--you know the ones: saved, redeemed, born again, grace, repentance, justification, thee’s, thou’s, shant’s and shall’s, they had no meaning to me anymore because they were so commonplace they’d lost their soul to the paradigm. But in the telling of great tales I found those old ideas dressed new, in fresh clothes, dancing in my mind like players on a stage.
We spend so much time up close to the Word, studying its minutiae, combing through the New Testament for new understanding, that I fear the church often loses sight of the epic. How many sermons and Sunday school lessons have you sat through that focused on a single verse? How utterly is the story of Christ alone preached outside its foundational context? Too often I think. It was years later that my mind finally began to string it all together. All those small Sunday lessons shifting around my mind, turning this way and that were finally dropping down into the great jigsaw faith that God had authored millennia ago. As I began to finally see the enormity of what God had wrought upon the world my mind staggered, awed, and wondered at its scope, its perfection. The idea that God had planned it all from the day of creation, had foreshadowed it, foretold it and at last utterly fulfilled it across thousands of years was unimaginable to me. It was the stuff of legend, the stuff of myth, only bigger, better, deeper and…true.
In the years since then I’ve been shocked at how often the church fails to present this one great true myth to its people. We preach Christ but so often fail to tell the stories recalling how he was prophesied in the Garden of Eden, how on Mt. Moriah God gave his lamb to Abraham, how on the Passover the lamb’s blood marked the doors of the faithful, how every year the priests carried out the Day of Atonement ceremony and the blood upon the mercy seat sought to cleanse the sins of a nation, how the prophets foretold the day and how heaven itself must have held its breath as Christ was made man and at last the Lamb of God himself was spurned and slain and achieved what no man ever could: victory over death. What stories! What tales! What a faith!
I was standing in the kitchen a few years back and I pestered Andrew to play for me some of his new stuff. Grudgingly he told me he had this idea to try and tell the full story of Christmas, not just the rote baby-in-a-manger stuff but the real story. I saw at once what he wanted to do (much to his relief I think) and I was excited to say the least. All too often we’re led to believe that Christmas is the beginning of the story, but in the epic scope of God’s revelation, his plan, Christmas is merely the beginning of its greatest chapter. Since that first twinkle of light was spoken into being all of history has heaved, rolled and moaned until at last it broke upon that glorious Christmas morning when the host of heaven sang glory and amen. Christmas is far from the beginning indeed.
A few weeks later, when I sat in an empty church in Nashville listening to Andy and Silers Bald running through the entire work for the first time, I cried. Man, this is what people need, I thought. People need to be reminded of just how big, how titan and finally how touching our history as Christians is. And I wasn’t the only one feeling that way, I saw every show of that first Christmas Tour and I felt the presence of God there in the audience like I have at no other time in my life, I felt as if I could almost hear his rumbling breath in the drums and his laughter in the mandolin. And the people listening knew it too; they wept it, they held their breath for fear they’d break it, they raised their hands in praise as if they could grab and hold it. And when it was over they wanted it, they anguished that it wasn’t available to take home with them where they could share it with others. Talk about good news, talk about gospel.
C.S. Lewis wrote, as Andy often points out, that one day we will look back on even the stars themselves as old tales. I have this vision in my mind that one day, somewhen, out there in a wooded corner of eternity, when we’ve been there long enough to breathe tales ten thousand years in the making, that God and his children are sitting around a bright, crackling fire and he’s telling old stories with grand gestures and a deep mesmerizing voice. He’s dancing around the light, smiling, laughing, bellowing each part as his children sit on the edge of the wavering firelight with wide eyes and anxious breath. He’s telling that amazing old story, that great true myth, that yarn of pain and loss, heroism and sacrifice, victory and vast, abiding love and when it’s over the kids are all stirred and weeping at the wonder as they ask, “Did that really happen Abba?” and God smiles as he softly answers, “Yes, oh yes.”
I hope this recording bears just a little resemblance to that story. I hope it reminds us that we are the heirs of promises sealed in an elder age when giants walked in Canaan and shepherds laid them low. I hope it tells the story, my story, our story and you’ll carry it with you and tell it again, and again, and again, until, in time, it passes to myth, and we at last to glory.