Flash Quiz: What do the following have in common – Lord of the Rings, Homer’s Odyssey, Shawshank Redemption, The Wizard of Oz, Beauty and the Beast, the Exodus, Cinderella and Jesus?
Correct Answer: They’re all redemption stories.
Redemption stories are everywhere. I could rattle off dozens of redemption stories – even if you had a gun to my head and made me hop on one foot … barefoot in a puddle of hot vegetable oil. I think you get the point: I love them. But I have a hunch that everyone loves redemption stories, which is why we (i.e. every culture, not just Americans) keep telling old ones and making up new ones.
Every redemption stories has three basic movements:
- A good beginning
- A bad middle
- A hopeful ending.
For a good beginning, think of Dorothy in Kansas surrounded by loving relatives and her doggie Toto. Or think of the first lines of The Hobbit: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell … it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” Ah, yes, sweet comfort. Home.
Of course the Bible opens with one wallop of a good beginning – Adam and Eve in paradise. But the Bible also contains smaller good beginnings, like the Book of Ruth. There’s a famine in the land, but Elimelech decides to move his family to Moab. It’s a daring, dangerous move, but he’s going to make life work. So with his wife and his two sons he treks to Moab.
God knows that we need some good beginnings. A child’s birth, a little girl dreaming, a college grad ready for his first real job, a wedding dance, a new house, a move, a church plant – we need to receive and celebrate good beginnings. They’re just flat-out good stories and I’m convinced that God loves them too. Of course the only problem is that they never last … which leads to part 2.
I think you’re stretching it a bit with Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. The mean neighbor is trying to get her little dog taken away, nobody is listening to her and she plaintively sings of her desire to be over the rainbow where things are better.
And what good beginning in Cinderella? She’s being persecuted by her step-mother and 2 step-sisters. Doing housework when everyone else is sitting back is horrible and the cute little animal helpers were only in the movie. (I’ll give you that when her father was alive, she was happy.)
But you are right about everyone loving redemption stories. What I like is…. OOOPs! I’m sure that’s in part 2.
I actually think you’re right, Matt: all these stories begin happily. Cinderella begins in happily ever after, turns to heartbreak, and is redeemed at the end. As far as Dorothy goes, she is home. There is something right and good and something that fits about being home. Actually come to think of it, a lot of these stories begin at home, don’t they?
We all want redemption. We cry out for it. That’s why we find our messy selves in these characters. They are us. They are telling our own story. Good stuff.
Hi CE:
Okay, you got a point. I mean Cinderella isn’t exactly Homer’s Odyssey or the Exodus. Although she did have a good beginning; we just pick up the story in Part 2 – “The Bad Middle.” These are lower-level redemption stories – not exactly filled with the darkness and anguish of some redemption stories. Nevertheless, we have to start somewhere and for a seven-year old Cinderella and the Wizard of Oz are pretty creepy. Wow, those flying monkeys gave me nightmares for years. As a matter of fact, they hounded me until I turned fifteen and I saw The Exorcist. Man, then I really had something to worry about!
The Exorcist=not a redemption story
Not exactly – unless, of course, the exorcism is successful and the nasty demon is driven out. In that case, you’d have a CLASSIC redemption story: good beginning, bad middle (possession), happy ending (a demon-free life).
mmmm well said.