Being With God…
05.19.25
(From chapter six of With by Skye Jethani.)
“J.R.R Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, often employed a storytelling device he called “eucatastrophe.” A catastrophe is an unexpected evil, but Tolkien added the Greek prefix eu meaning “good” to express the unexpected appearance of goodness. He defined it as “the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with joy that brings you to tears.” It has this effect on us “because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth” in which we “feel a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back.” Repeatedly, in his stories the eucatastrophe occurs just as all appears to be lost. It is the moment the eagles swoop in for the rescue, the riders of Rohan arrive as the battle, or Gandalf the White appears with the breaking of the day.
This is who Jesus is and what Jesus does (think the restoration of Peter for example.) He is the light that gives us a sudden glimpse of truth. Our humanly devised ways of relating to God that never seem to satisfy are revealed to be out of joint. But in Christ things suddenly snap into place, and the result is joy. His coming also shines a light onto a truth about the cosmos previously hidden from our sight. In the opening words of John’s gospel, we are given a very different vision of the universe. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning God.” Jesus existed before all things, and He was both with God and was God.
I like how Kevin DeYoung explained it. “With a biblical understanding of the Trinity we can say that God did not create in order to be loved, but rather created out of the overflow of the perfect love that had always existed among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who ever live in perfect and mutual relationship and delight.”
The life With God posture is predicated on the view that relationship is at the core of the cosmos. God the Father WITH God the Son WITH God the Holy Spirit. And so we should not be surprised to discover that when God desired to restore relationship with people, Jesus came to dwell WITH us. God’s plan to restore creation was not to send a list of rules and rituals to follow, nor was it the implementation of useful principles. God did not send a genie to grant us our desires, nor give us a task to accomplish. Instead, God came to be WITH us, to walk with us once again as designed from the beginning.
Jesus entered into our dark existence to share our broken world and to illuminate a different way forward. His coming was a sudden and glorious catastrophe of good.”