13. The Power of Story

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13. The Power of Story

And I will give to my two witnesses and they shall prophecy . . . The angel speaking to John - Revelation 11:3

In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you are in Me and I am in you. Jesus speaking just before Gethsemane - John 14.

Revelation 11 and 12 are the central chapters to comprehend the transition between two ages that we are in, to recognize and move with what God is doing and is about to do in the earth.

But if you Google "the two witnesses," you will plumb the depths of the bizarre ridiculousness that swirls around what is known in the church world as "Bible prophecy." You will even find websites of individual people claiming that they themselves, set above all others, are these two witnesses. It doesn't take long to sense that they do not know the Jesus upon whose breast we lean our heads.

I have no intention of 'predicting' any future events. The prophetic word in the Bible is not given for us to play guessing games with the future. It is given to us to understand the present, particularly the revelation of Jesus Christ in our union with Him.

Peter set the standard for the New Covenant use of Bible prophecy on the day the church was birthed. He looked around at what was happening before His very eyes in the present experience of Christ in the church. As Peter watched, the Spirit of God brought to his mind the prophecy of Joel and suddenly he understood the present experience of the church. He stood up in front of the gathering crowds and said, "This (what you see happening now) is that" (what Joel prophesied). The understanding the Spirit of God gave Peter concerning the prophetic word of Scripture had nothing to do with the political events of the world, but rather the present revelation of Christ in His church.

This is the purpose of all Bible prophecy.

Revelation 11:3 speaks of the normal Christian life. The angel did not say "I will give power," he said, "I will give." What is there that we, as believers in Jesus, have not been given? Jesus said, "All authority in heaven and earth is given unto Me, go ye therefore . . ." Paul said, "All things are yours, whether life or death or . . ." ; he said, "How shall not God, with Christ, freely give us all things?"

But we cannot know Christ in Revelation 11 without approaching the chapter differently than we have approached it in the past. This is true of myself as well. I have little idea, really, of what it is talking about. This is a way we have not been before. I, also, must draw from the understanding of Christ in us revealed as us in this world in order to rejoice in the power of this mighty vindication of God in which His grip has seized us.

It is not possible to understand what God is doing in us or in the earth apart from story. Story alone opens up the heart, which is at the center of the revelation of God. That's why the Bible, in contrast to all religious or philosophical books, is so filled with and woven around story, the human story.

With The Lion King, I can preach the gospel in the public school classroom. With The Odyssey, I can show a revelation of the knife point of the dealings of God in a man's heart. You may think me silly, but through The Lord of the Rings (the book, more than the movie), I see the power and victory of God in our lives over all enemies through honor and through weakness, so that tears stream down my face at the wonder and glory of His purposes.

Nothing can show us God like story can. We are caught in the telling of the mightiest story in the universe, and we are the heroes of that story. The ring Frodo carried was the source of the enemy's power - self living for self - power to compel others for good or for evil, the Lie. The enemy never imagined that anyone, carrying the source of such power, would seek to eliminate it forever.

It wasn't the wise one, Gandalf, who brought down the enemy. It wasn't the mighty one, Aragorn, or even the devoted one, Frodo. No. The one upon whose shoulders and sturdy legs the fate of all the world rested, and all free peoples and living things, was the simplest, in some ways the weakest of all the characters of the story, Samwise Gamgee. And he won solely out of heart, from the deepest love, tested beyond all measure and found true. At the very end we discover that, after all, the entire book was Sam's story.

Fallen man is still the image of God. That image is darkened by shadow, yes, but man, even in darkness, is still more like God than we can understand.

All of the great tellers and writers of story in human history follow the same pattern for the same purpose. You cannot know what a man is until you open him wide open to get past all the facade and deceit and all the masks, to get at his heart, to see what he really is, on the inside, when all pretense is swept away. Only then do you see the heart of this being called the image of God.

And to open up his heart, you must press him beyond all measure. He must come to utter failure, to impossibility, to the complete end of himself. And there, for the first time, he knows himself as he really is.

This is exactly what God does with us; this is how we know Christ.

"Oh wretched man that I am, who can save me from the body of this death?" as the deepest cry of the heart, are the sweetest words to our Father. Finally, He can show us who we really are. Christ is our life, we have no other life.

Go to Netflix.com, if you are not subscribed then do so, you get the first month free. Rent the movie Jane Eyre - 2006 with Toby Stevens and Jane Wilson. There are many Jane Eyre movies, but this is the one I want you to watch.

All human thinking, including most Christian thinking, comes out of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Most of Christian theology views the things God says from the thought processes and the seeing of the tree of knowledge.

You cannot get to the tree of life from the tree of knowledge. There is no path between the two, no connection. You cannot grow out of the tree of knowledge until, finally, you've grown up enough to see and understand the tree of life. No, the cross alone is the tree of life, yet we have seen even the cross through the thinking of the tree of knowledge. If you are trying to bring yourself to the cross, trying to die to sin or self, trying to get your flesh under foot, however you call it, all you are doing is sitting fully in the tree of knowledge, looking over at the tree of life, and trying to comprehend the meaning of something you cannot understand by the rules and definitions of knowledge.

And we have never lived in the tree of life, nor have we seen the world or Christian truth from the tree of life - until we comprehend that Christ is our life, we have no other life.

We must make a lateral leap, abandoning utterly the thinking of the tree of knowledge, seeing all things completely out from the tree of life, though it is all brand new to us. It is through story that we are enabled to make that leap. And that story is Christ.

In all great story, the hero loses everything, and in losing everything, he or she wins all that is meaningful. (Sounds like something Jesus said.) In a story like Gladiator, the hero loses everything at the beginning of his journey, and then again loses everything at the end. Yet in losing everything, the hero always wins that which is most important, and that which is most important is always family. (Sounds like something else Jesus said.)

We can read everything in the New Testament mechanically, rooted in knowledge, or we can read everything in the New Testament organically, rooted in story. It is the same words, but they respond totally differently to the two ways of knowing with no connection between them.

There is no path from the tree of knowledge to the tree of life!

Charlotte Bronte, who wrote Jane Eyre in the early 1800's, was the daughter of a clergyman. She and her sister wrote two of the greatest works of literature in all history. The movie I want you to watch opens up to us the genius of this remarkable woman so well.

Consider these thoughts as you watch Jane Eyre. First, it is patterns of truth we are seeking to understand, not the mechanics of principles. Jane Eyre is you and I; Jane Eyre is the bride of Christ (I'm speaking of patterns here). And let me be so bold as to say that Jane Eyre, by pattern, is God.

There are five points, or scenes in the story I want you to notice in particular. First, Jane begins unwanted, growing up under a cloud of false accusation. You will be struck at the awfulness of what she is told about who she is. Then, at the end, Jane in her mid-twenties is a tree of life gathering all whom she knows and loves, from highest to lowest under the abundance of her joy. Consider deeply that final scene. All of the life and goodness, all of the inclusion and place, all that is family, comes from Jane. Even Rochester is a beneficiary of her joy.

So the question Charlotte Bronte explores is how does Jane pass from living under a cloud of hideous and false accusation to extending a tree of life over her 'family?' In this passage are three critical points that I want you to ponder. I will even suggest that you stop and watch each of these three scenes a second time through before proceeding on. The rest of the story and the skill of the writer and of the girl who plays Jane Eyre so well, serve primarily to drive these three points as deeply into the heart of the reader/watcher as possible.

The first scene is Jane and Rochester outside under a tree. He is pressing her cruelly, in his crude way, trying to see what she really feels about herself and about him. She makes this statement, "I am your equal in mind and in heart." This is the first scene to consider.

The second is the largest and the telling point of the entire story. It is the entire period from her walking down the aisle, hoping that she has found happiness, to her collapse into unconsciousness and sickness in a muddy field far away. The story from beginning to end is told primarily to give scope and meaning to this utter shattering of her heart.

The final scene to consider is the moment when she hears the call of her beloved and wakes out of sleep, as it were, by responding to that call as the only passion of her heart. It is in this moment that her shattered heart rings true.

It is these three points, standing firm in who she knows she is, the cruel shattering of all of her dreams and hopes, and the leaping of her true heart in response to the call of her beloved, that show us how one born under accusation becomes a tree of life.

I cannot explain the meaning and significance of these things to you. That comes only through the power and pathos of story and the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Let God speak to you through story.

We are caught up in a far greater story than that of Jane Eyre or Samwise Gamgee or Odysseus, a story that these lesser stories can only point us to dimly, through a glass darkly. The story we are in has nothing to do with the mechanics of obedience, but everything to do with the opening up and the exposure for all to see of the very heart of Almighty God.

This is God's story; it is His heart that must be pressed beyond measure and opened for all to see the depths and reality of infinite and eternal heart.

God is birthing His very heart inside of us, that He might reveal Himself as He really is for all creation to know Him - in us. And just as it is God's story, so, beyond all comprehension, it is our story.

At this point you might wonder what this has to do with Revelation Chapter 11 and the two witnesses.

Consider the climax of Jane Eyre, that period of unthinkable shattering of her heart and every part of her being. That place where the author of the story takes for us the hero, a simple, true-hearted little girl, and presses her to the wall, beyond all measure, opening up and exposing for all to see the very core and essence of her being, in agony, in sorrow, and in loss. Revelation Chapter 11 and 12 is that same portion of the great story of God. It is the climax. It is the passage through which all things are made known.

That is why all the attempts to "explain" Revelation 11 found throughout Christianity are so very, very sad. None of them considers in any way the Heart of God, His story, His vindication and triumph, or the Tree of Life.

Or how He fulfills all these things concerning His own story in you and in me by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Jane Eyre

There are a number of great movies that present story at its heart. To draw out the truth of God from these movies, however, requires a mind given to analogies and allegory. Not everyone has such a mind, and that's perfectly fine, God makes each of us different. My mother loves the Lord and has walked with Him for many, many years, but she would get absolutely nothing out of any "fiction" movie.

If you enjoy movies and story, I know you will enjoy this version of Jane Eyre. You will find it here:

http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Jane-Eyre/70062369?trkid=147042