What a Strange Story!

            Have you ever been struck by how good it is that the Lord is God and that we are not?  I found Deuteronomy 31 a little disturbing.  In it the Lord says, “Look, I know that Israel is going to fail.  I know they’re going to abandon me and I’m going to punish them.”  I don’t know what to make of a God who knows beforehand the trouble that His people are going to cause, but who chooses to do things His way anyway.

            When I teach the story of the Bible, I refer to God’s strange plan.  And it is a strange plan that from a rebellious people He will bring forth the One who will heal their rebellion, and not just theirs but the rebellion of the whole world.

            It’s even stranger than that, though.  I read a book called The Life of Pi while I was in Chicago earlier this month.  The main character was an Indian.  Raised a Hindu, he describes his first encounter with Christianity.  Listening to the story of our faith with Hindu ears captured its strangeness for me in a really fresh way.

            “And what a story.  The first thing that drew me in was disbelief.  What?  Humanity sins but it’s God’s Son who pays the price?  I tried to imagine Father [a zookeeper] saying to me, “Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas.  Yesterday another one killed a black buck.  Last week two of them ate the camel.  The week before it was painted storks and grey herons.  And who’s to say for sure who snacked on our golden agouti?  The situation has become intolerable.  Something must be done.  I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed you to them.”

            “Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to do.  Give me a moment to wash up.”

            “Hallelujah, my son.”

            “Hallelujah, Father.”

            What a downright weird story.  What peculiar psychology.

            I asked for another story, one that I might find more satisfying.  Surely this religion had more than one story in its bag—religions abound with stories.  But Father Martin made me understand that the stories that came before it—and there were many—were simply prologue to Christians.  Their religion had one Story, and to it they came back again and again, over and over.  It was story enough for them.”

The bit in question goes on for two more pages.  You can check it out of the library for yourself (Life of Pi, by Yann Martel).  My point is simply that our God has a unique approach to salvation, and it involves extending Himself through the agency of a rebellious people, just as He still extends His reign through humans, namely, His church.