Curtain Call (Part 2)

Job found himself in the middle of a grand drama with a central part to play and the entire universe watching, a drama that gives us a glimpse of what God is up to.

It tells us there’s something going on that’s bigger than we are, that we’re part of a larger story God is writing for all creation, a love story that will be told through all generations and throughout eternity—how certain men and women clung to God in His absence, in the darkness, when faith seemed like folly, when they were tempted to cut and run. Will they love Him, though they do not see Him or hear Him or feel His loving touch? Wait and see.

I think of Tolkien’s tale of Frodo the Hobbit and his halfling friends and their journey to carry the terrible ring to Mordor and “unmake” it, a journey freighted with grave danger and adversity.

The friends reach the borders of Mordor and are climbing the great cliff of Cirith Ungol, a terrible place of darkness and deep shadow. Frodo at last gives way to terror and discouragement. He is ready to give up and go back to the Shire. “What is the meaning of it all?” he sighs. “Why go on?”

Sam, however, assures Frodo that someday the world will tell his story and put his heroics in perspective: “You know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: ‘Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring!’ And they’ll say: ‘Yes, that’s one of my favorite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn’t he, dad?’ ‘Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that’s saying a lot.’”

“That is to say a lot,” cries Frodo, and he laughs “a long clear laugh from his heart. Such a sound had not been heard in those places since Sauron came to Middle-earth.”

The truth breaks upon Frodo: His suffering is not meaningless after all. It is part of something great and good that will someday touch and grace the entire world, and his response—the response of pure joy—is to laugh.

I too laugh when I think that I, a mere spear­-carrier and minor player, am in the middle of a colossal cosmic drama, played out before angels and all redeemed humanity, a drama in which I am called to suffer and love until the day I die—a love “at which the world grows pale,” a love that inspires the hearts of men and angels throughout the universe and through all the ages.

Then will I strip [my] sleeves and show [my] scars,

Then shall [my] name be familiar in their mouths as household words . . .

This Story shall the good man teach his son,

From this day on, I shall be remembered.

-adapted from Shakespeare’s King Henry V

~David Roper