“The world of the fairy tale impinges on the ordinary world the way the dimension of depth impinges on the two-dimensional surface of a plane, so that there is no point on the plane-a Victorian sitting room or a Kansas farm-that can’t become an entrance to it. You enter the EXTRAORDINARY by way of the ORDINARY. Something you have seen a thousand times you suddenly see as if for the first time…you do not have to go a great distance to enter it any more than you have to go a great distance to enter the world of dreams-you just have to go to sleep-or the world of memory…”
Frederick Buechner (Telling the Truth)

I was watching a raindrop.

Framed in a cloudy backdrop of gray, a single bead of lonely water fell silently out of the sky. It traveled a short journey from the bottom of the lacy dark canopy tumbling quickly down to die on a hard surface of dry concrete. It ended quietly. No cry or whimper, just the sound of a soft pat hitting the ground. Within seconds it was swallowed by the cracks and dimples of a thirsty sidewalk.

Is that what life is like for you? A sad straight line downward? Are you just existing to exist? Is there any magic or only dull tedium?

I am not by nature a depressed person, but there are days when I wonder is that all? Is my day only the same day lived, again and again, a drab existence covered in a cloud of emotional gray? Am I a raindrop?

Listen to this quote by Frederick Buechner, it is aimed at preachers like me who forget the real fairy tale we are daily living in:

“The truth, reality, is what it is. It is the TV news with the sound turned on and all the other sound turned on with it-the sounds of the house, of the street outside the house, the town, the countryside, the world…The truth is all the sounds that well up within the preacher as he sits down at his desk to put his sermon together-the sounds of the bills to be paid, the children to educate, the storm windows to put up, the sounds of his own blunders and triumphs, of his lusts and memories and dreams and doubts, and one of which when you come right down to it is apt to seem more real and immediate and clamorous to him than the sound of truth as high and wild and holy.

So homiletics becomes apologetics. The preacher exchanges the fairy-tale truth that is too good to be true for a truth that…secularizes and makes rational. He adapts and makes relevant. He demythologizes and makes credible. And what remains of the fairy tale of the Gospel becomes in his hands a neutered narrative where there are few surprises.” (Italized words are not the original authors ).

Is the Gospel a fairy tale? Not in the sense that it is a completely made-up, make-believe story; but it is in the sense that when understood rightly it is “high, wild and holy. It is magical!” Yes, the Gospel is meant to be wild, and magical. It is meant to awaken my soul to another world that exists just beyond my sight. But to the average preacher, like me, and the average Christian, like you, the Gospel is often seen merely as an insignificant add-on to the monotony of my ho-hum daily routine. Like the raindrop, my life quietly, silently, unceremoniously descends.

That isn’t much of a fairy tale. In fact, that isn’t even magical. And that isn’t the Gospel.

Frederick Buechner says there are three components to the fairy tale that are also true to the Gospel:

(1) The hidden world is full of darkness and danger. He says that in the fairy tale there are “fierce dragons that guard the treasure, wicked fairies who show up at royal christenings, wrong turns off the path, an awful price to be paid for choosing the wrong casket or wrong door. It is a world of a dark and dangerous quest where the suitors compete for the hand of the king’s daughter with death to the losers…” The Gospel has been sold differently than this. We have come to see it as something tame. A list of ideas, cold principles and irrelevant historical facts that you learn on Sunday, but is not does really contain the warp and woof of real living. The Gospel doesn’t pay the bills, it adds little to help troubled relationships, it offers relatively nothing in the immediate stressful schedule of the day. But I believe if you were to actually read the Bible rightly, the Gospel is first and foremost the entrance into a real world full of darkness and danger, of beasts and creatures fully fanged. In my Proverbs study, I often forget I am dealing with more than meets the eye. Proverbs is not just wisdom for being good, it opens us up to a wider panorama of the “high, wild and holy.” I came across a number of verses that will chill you to the bone. Let me offer just two:

– Proverbs 21:26 – “One who wanders from the path of understanding and good sense, will rest in the assembly of the dead.”What path is this? I am not walking on any path right now, am I? Jesus says I am, in fact, he clearly states that there are only two to choose from. A wide road and a narrow rocky path. (Matthew 7:13-14) He tells me the wide road, the easy road, the one most of us are traveling on, leads to destruction. The narrow path, the one rarely ever chosen, leads to a vibrant technicolor life; it leads the weary wide-eyed adventurer eventually to a land full of wonder that is just around the next corner. Is my daily wandering really that precarious? Will many of my friends and family end up walking with the assembly of the dead? Are they holding hands with hordes of demons and fanged monsters? Does aimlessness really involve that much danger? The Bible seems to think so.

– Proverbs 15:11 – “Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the Lord; how much more the hearts of the children of man!” Sheol, the place of the dead, and Abaddon, the great abyss that holds terrifying demons and dark angels, lie open, right this very moment, ready to swallow the unsuspecting average person like moths to a flickering flame. Most of us see the world as nothing more than a mundane existence. a boring routine, going to work, watching Netflix and taking an Advil and a few vitamins to stop joint pain as I get ready to slink into to bed on my $399 Serta mattress. Is Sheol widening her mouth under hundreds if not thousands of unsuspecting simpletons as they sleep in total ignorance? Is there more in this moment than simply paying bills and attending mindless parties? Is life a dangerous world? Is the Gospel that magical?

(2) Both Evil and Good disguise themselves in the fairytale world. Buechner queries, “Who could guess that the little gray man asking for bread is a great magician who holds in his hands the power of life and death…Beasts talk and flowers come to life, and nothing is apt to be what it seems.” For Christians, the man who was helplessly strung up on the cross, the despised one, the one whose name is daily used as a mere swear word of the cool and cunning, is getting ready this moment to return to the earth in his royal raiment. He will be beautiful to behold and mighty in word and deed. He is hidden, waiting, wanting people to want him. But when he bursts on the scene he will shake the world, and everything that is not built on a sure foundation will crumble. And the one who looks beautiful now will be utterly shamed. The Devil will be defanged and humiliated, and those who follow the “god of this age” will be stricken silent and dumb, no more mocking, no more sinning in abundance, the adversary will be eating crow…and his army of followers, the arrogant and proud, the beautiful people of this current world, will be forced to choke on their own pride.

(3) The fairytale is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and wherein the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name. I like how Frederick puts it here, “So great is the power of magic that even the less-than-good live happily ever after. It is the beast who becomes beautiful, the cowardly lion who becomes brave, the wicked sisters with their big feet and fancy ways who repent in the end and are forgiven. Happiness is not only inevitable, it is also endless.” Christianity promises happily ever after as well. Revelation 22 says, “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy, Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done…Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and they may enter the city by the gates.”

We are walking among giants, people who have washed their robes in blood. Mighty men and women. And yet most of us yawn when we see them, or we cringed when we look into the bathroom mirror not seeing ourselves as we really are. The world to us is only gray, we feel like drops of water falling.

But this is not so!

Soon may seem like a relative word, something that seems far away, but I am not so sure. Soon I will close my eyes. Soon I will wake up in a bed that is mine, a soft bed, warm. Soon I will open my eyes and a familiar face will be looking at me, a face I will intimately know but have never seen before. I will know the voice. Soon I will also see my dad, alive, smiling, standing behind the face that is more beautiful than a sunrise, more alive than a summer day. I will feel like I did when as I boy I was standing with my dad by the edge of the shimmering water that was lapping up on Lake Erie beach. But it will be better. It will be soon.

Soon means I am near the edge of a world that is as close to me as a dream when one awakes. I am not a raindrop. I am an heir to the throne. Royalty hidden underneath the clothes of a commoner. There is more than meets the eye. My job is to live like magic is real.

I need to stop being bored.

So do you. Wake up the fairy tale is real. Jesus rose. Jesus is “I am.” Wake up!