My wife and I love Korean tv shows. In the one we're currently watching, the protagonist is an optimistic start-up entrepreneur whose dreams are crushed by the corporate machine. She loses her boyfriend, her career, and her company. Her team is broken up and her office is empty. And yet, after marinating in the rubble for a little while, she puts her hair back into a ponytail and starts again. We have a feeling her rebirth will end in success.
Devoid of characters, K-dramas (and every story) would just be scenery snapshots. Protagonists and antagonists must grow and change throughout a story if they are to move us. Samwise Gamgee would be annoying if he didn't have a spark of loyalty. Darth Vader would be one-dimensional if he didn't save his son from a cruel death. We find these characters compelling - but why?
Good stories nibble, grind, and pierce into our souls. They evoke emotions within us that sometimes pierce the veil of normality. They whisper (and sometimes shout) that there's something more. We aren't just hormonal meatbags destined to disintegrate. The world really is a stage.
Good stories move us because the characters reflect us. They also often touch parts of us we wish were true. And sometimes, stories are far too accurate.
Humanity's story, told in the pages of Scripture, perfectly demonstrates this phenomenon. We know we were made for the perfect world Adam and Eve had. We know God's law is worth following. We know we are just like Israel, defying God's commands and reaping the consequences. We know we need God, but we know we don't want Him. We know we need a Savior.
We aren't the main point of the story. We aren't the heroine extinguished by her office overlords.
We're the tragic villains.
When Jesus, God's only begotten Son, died on a Roman cross, He had lived a perfect life. You'd think He couldn't understand us, but the author of Hebrews says that He was like His brothers in every respect (Heb. 2:17). Though fully divine, He grew in His human nature. He grew in favor and stature with God and men (Lk. 2:52), and He learned obedience through what He suffered (Heb. 5:8). He was tempted, just as we are, yet without sin. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He did not break a bruised reed. The carpenter's boy who waxed eloquent in the Jewish temple became the bloodied, mangled criminal buried in a garden tomb.
This is where the story is most profound. As readers, we see the perfections of Jesus and then suddenly, horrifyingly, realize that we were the ones who killed Him.
But then these words shatter the glass walls of our preconceptions:
"For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:7-8)
We're the object of redemption. We're the characters that are rescued from our sin. We all deserve God's wrath, but Jesus Christ came to save us, give us eternal life, and completely forgive our sins.
Jesus wasn't a permanent grave resident. God raised Him from the dead, and He now sits at the Father's right hand, interceding for all who repent of their sins and trust in Him alone for salvation.
What a story. The perfect man was crushed for His enemies. We, who hated God, are now His firstborn children.
Good stories are good stories not only because they reflect our deepest emotions, but because they point to the greatest reality of all.
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