by President Sung Jin Lim
Book Review
Transposing stages one and two, then three and four, creates the following order: truth, misbelief, transformation, and realization. It is this order that creates a tragedy.
Star Wars episodes one through three trace the tragic descent of Anakim Skywalker, Luke’s father. Early on, he is presented with the truth about his innate abilities. Episode two finds him growing in those abilities but also showing signs of a dubious character. Come the third episode, the evil chancellor has twisted Anakim’s mind. He believes a lie. Good is now evil. Evil is now good. His transformation is both psychic and physical. Only later, much later in episode six, will he realize with bitterness and deep regret what we the moviegoers realized much earlier. His story is largely a tragedy.
The story of mankind’s fall is similarly tragic. Adam and Eve possessed the truth but came to believe a lie. As soon as they tasted what God’s lovingkindness had forbidden, they were transformed. Immediately, but only partially it seems, did they realize what they had done. Their encounter with their Creator later that evening, followed soon after by their expulsion from paradise and the harsh realities of life outside the Garden, would serve to make that realization painfully clear.
Texts and sermons that progress from truth to lie to transformation to realization are tragedies. They speak powerfully to hearers who, like a story’s protagonist, once knew the truth but came to believe otherwise. They were transformed in the process and only later, if ever, came to realize with bitterness and regret what had become of them. This is the story of mankind as recounted by Paul in Romans 1. “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up…” (vv. 21-24).
Tragic preaching has its place. It can be either therapeutic or prophetic. We find both in the Old Testament’s prophetic section. Jeremiah and Hosea preached with tenderness, inviting a broken people to be made whole again. Ezekiel and Amos, on the other hand, preached with a scathing zeal. Who among us does not yet wince at the thought of expounding Ezekiel chapter twenty-three? Much of Israel’s history was a tragedy. If the Bible records it as such, why should we not preach it as such? Preachers in both of our Testaments did.
