Epic: The Story God is Telling and the Role That is Yours to Play

Epic
The Story God is Telling and the Role That is Yours to Play
By John Eldredge
Thomas Nelson, 2004
ISBN: 0-7852-6531-7

Hollywood and Harlequin have too often hijacked words that used to mean something. Unfortunately, words like “romance”, “love story” and “epic” have become synonymous for tawdry, cheap and predictable. Not so with John Eldredge’s creative, clever and engaging little book of just over one hundred pages.

Epic unfolds as a four-act “play” with a Prologue and an Epilogue. Chapter titles – or Acts – include Eternal Love, The Entrance of Evil, The Battle for the Heart, and The Kingdom Restored. The Epilogue is The Road Before Us.

Shedding worn-out, pedantic rehashes, Epic is a “tell me the story” approach to the Story. The words may be different from what you’re used to - romance, betrayal, pursuit, Hero, Lover, rescue - but the Story’s the same: Creation, the Fall and original sin, struggle and schism, and God’s redemptive plan through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.

Drawing from a variety of literary and cinematic genres including Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last of the Mohicans, Titanic, Apollo 13 and Paradise Lost, as well as some great authors – Buechner, Milton, C.S. Lewis, Philip Yancey and G.K. Chesterton, to name a few – Eldredge retells the Greatest Story ever told in an eloquent, winsome manner that’s as flavorful and full-bodied as a premium Cabernet Sauvignon. Eldredge’s style is brisk, his tone genial. His paragraphs are conversational, well-seasoned with interrogatories, anecdotes and literary segues designed to explore, inspire, engage and explain.

In Act One, Eternal Love, Eldredge explains that the triune God is relational and personal from Genesis to Revelation, and longs for a relationship with his Creation, humanity. (Some of Eldredge’s themes in Epic regarding beauty, intimacy, and adventure are echoed in Captivating: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Woman’s Soul – 2005.)

In Act Two, The Entrance of Evil, Eldredge tell us about the schism brought about by evil, free will, and sin. He asks - among other things: “Dear God – the Holocaust, child prostitution, terrorist bombings, genocidal governments. What is it going to take for us to take evil seriously?” In this section Eldredge recounts the biblical narrative of the fall of Lucifer as a result of pride and betrayal (pp. 33-37). He explains through example and illustration and biblical text that we live in a world at war as a result.

At thirty-one pages, Act Three: The Battle for the Heart, is perhaps overlong and occasionally overwritten. Flowery metaphors and descriptions of waterfalls, birds, “tulips and pine trees” are rehearsed perhaps more than is necessary, but Eldredge makes his point in recounting the glory of Creation, with humanity its final crescendo:

“God creates us in his image, with powers like unto his own – the ability to reason, to create, to share intimacy, to know joy. He gives us laughter and wonder and imagination. And above all else, he endows us with that one quality for which he is most known.

He enables us to love.”

It’s quite a risk, because with this ability to love God also gave us free will, including the freedom to reject him. “Why?” asks Eldredge on page 51. “The answer is as simple and staggering as this” he writes, “if you want a world where love is real, you must allow each person the freedom to choose” With that freedom we chose to reach for “that one forbidden thing.”

“….. at that moment something in our hearts shifted. We reached, and in our reaching we fell from grace.” This freedom resulted in original sin.” Free will is “where our story takes its tragic turn” (p. 54) a la Genesis 3:1-6. Says Eldredge, “You must understand: the Evil One hates God, hates anything that reminds him of the glory of God… wherever it exists. Unable to overthrow the Mighty One, he turned his sights on those who bore his image.”

Evil has invaded the Epic.

“God gave us the wondrous world as our playground, and he told us to enjoy it fully and freely. Yet despite his extravagant generosity, we had to reach for the one forbidden thing. And at that moment something in our hearts shifted. We reached, and in our reaching we fell from grace.” (p. 56)

Sin enters the Story and “spreads like a computer virus.” But wait, writes Eldredge, “every great story has a rescue” (p. 61). Enter Act Four: The Kingdom Restored. Here we see hope resurrected. Paradise regained. Our future secured. Tragedy turned into Triumph. Lover and Beloved reunited.

“One day soon we will round a bend in the road, and our dreams will come true. We really will live happily ever after. The long years in exile will be swept away in the joyful tears of our arrival home. … All we long for, we shall have; all we long to be, we will be. All that has hurt us so deeply will be swept away.

And then real life begins.”

I can’t wait.

***
Author’s Addendum:
Epic won’t appeal to everyone, but neither does Shakespeare or Doonesbury. There’s a certain crowd that “doesn’t get” Eldredge books. Based on my wholly unscientific and purely subjective observations, these folks invariably fall into the camp of… unimaginative, jaded and … dull? They seem threatened by the use of words like “romance” or “lover” in conjunction with God and toss accusations of “poor theology” or an “inadequate view of God” at those who do like gravel off a hot rod’s spinning tires. They can’t (or won't) “think outside the box” or stained glass windows and seem intimidated by anyone who does – yet remains biblically sound. I wonder if the same critics who bash Eldredge’s books would eagerly wade into Narnia, Middle Earth or Neverland with hammer and scythe as well, flailing away at will?

My advice to these stiff-as-a-board stuffed shirts: Take a deep breath. It’s not that scary. Lighten up and listen up. You might learn something.