Keep Telling the Story

Recently I read the novel Where the Crawdads Sing and came to a point in the story where a character was put on trial for murder. I had become very invested in the character and had to force myself to read those difficult chapters and not skip over them. This experience reminded me of a bit of wisdom from the poet Malcolm Guite:

“The great thing, in the dark chapters, is not to close the book, but to keep telling the story, trusting that we are not at the end of the story yet, and that we are in the hands of a Good Author.”

Throughout history as recorded in the Old Testament, the people of God experienced many dark chapters of war, slavery, betrayal, self-destruction, natural disasters, plagues, and displacement, but they kept telling the story of how God made a covenant with them and would lead them to a new kingdom of peace and prosperity. They trusted they were in the hands of a Good Author, and indeed, a major plot twist occurred when Emmanuel, God-with-us, was born. This unusual Messiah proclaimed that when we are poor in spirit and are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, the kingdom of heaven is—not will be, but is now—ours.

Advent reminds us that even after Jesus was killed and resurrected as the Christ, we are not yet at the end of the story. We need to be awake to the presence of God among us even in our own dark chapters of pandemics, racism, and class wars and do our part to bring the kingdom of God to fulfillment. We need to keep telling the story; when we get discouraged, let us not close the book but remind each other to take heart, because we are in the hands of a Good Author.