The Greatest Story Ever Told

Have you ever thought, “What if I’m a character in someone’s story?” 

You wouldn’t be the first to think that. Shakespeare suggests to his audience that they aren’t just watching a story; they are in a story—and not a good one!  His character Macbeth, in the play performed over 400 years ago, expresses this terrible perspective:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Is life really a meaningless tale, a story that’s full of noise and tumult, a story told by an idiot? 

As a kid, “telling stories” was our euphemism for lying. My mother taught us not to call people liars, so we softened by saying, “He’s telling stories.” For this reason, there’s an associated mentality that says stories aren’t true. Who wants to be a part of a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? Who wants to be a part of a story if a story is inherently untrue? 

All stories are not equal. All stories are not “told by an idiot,” to quote Shakespeare. There is ONE STORY that is inherently true. You can find lots of false narratives, a lot of fiction, fake news if you will, but there is one story that represents ultimate truth, the greatest story ever told. It is a story so great that if not true, our hopes are completely dashed. But if the story is true, it is the greatest hope both for this life and the life to come. 

The story is Easter.

And this story includes you. But it starts with Jesus.

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,  and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:44-49

The disciples thought they might have been in a horror story because they thought they were talking to a ghost (v. 37). But this is no ghost story, and Jesus was no ghost. Jesus had a resurrected body and actually ate with them. What was happening had already been written:  He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

 Jesus fulfilled what was written. Jesus had started his ministry with what was written about him: The Spirit is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the Good news (Luke 4). This is God’s story: Good news! And it was written long before. It is not a story that just started with the disciples’ lives, not even with Jesus coming to the earth. It is a story announced from the very beginning. The story as we know it starts with the words, “In the beginning, God….” John says this creation happened through Jesus. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God and we needed a savior, God promises early in Genesis Chapter 3 that he would send a Savior in human flesh who would himself be bruised, as Jesus was with his crucifixion, but who would bruise the devil’s head. Jesus fulfills at least 300 Old Testament prophecies about himself. That goes far beyond coincidence, and is a fact often used to present rational proof of Jesus’ story. 

Rational proof is not enough.

The disciples were right there with the risen Jesus, they had living proof standing before them, and they still needed Jesus to open their minds. How much more do we? We have to have Jesus open our minds to the truth. It’s spiritual, and spiritual things have to be understood spiritually. We have to have our spiritual eyes and ears opened to God. Otherwise, the things of the spirit are foreign to us. We don’t understand the Bible. We can’t see God working in history. We fail to perceive God working in our lives. That’s why Paul prayed for the Ephesian church to have the eyes of their heart enlightened. It’s the way we are to live.

If you read the Bible without having your spiritual eyes opened, it won’t make much sense to you. If your spiritual ears are opened, you will begin to discern the voice of God. It will be as though God is speaking to you. When I was new in the Lord, I would read and get so excited, I felt like I was making brand new discoveries that no one else had ever seen! I remember sharing a Bible story with my pastor, and what it meant to me. I was so disappointed that he already knew the story! That’s how real it was to me, though. 

Beyond comprehension.

One of the things written in advance about Jesus is that he would suffer, but the disciples and the religious leaders of Jesus’ day had all missed that point. That’s  a major reason the disciples needed their minds opened. The didn’t  have a clue that their Messiah would die and then be raised from the dead. A suffering Messiah was beyond their comprehension. They had religious blinders that kept them from seeing, even after the fact of Jesus’ suffering. 

Besides his suffering, Jesus presents something else to his disciples that was beyond their comprehension and would require their minds to be opened. Jesus continues by saying: “and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (v. 47). Jesus is speaking of the future! Jesus fulfilled much of what was written, but there is more to come. What has just happened, Jesus’ death and resurrection, was written before it happened. But there is more! There’s a much bigger story than the disciples realized. 

A bigger story.

The story of Jesus would be “Preached in his name to all nations.” “All nations” indicates the story is not just for the Jewish people, something else that was incomprehensible to Jesus’ disciples. Of course, the mission to Gentiles didn’t start as an afterthought, as a last resort when the Jewish people for the most part rejected the Gospel. God’s plan was from the beginning was for Jew and Gentile alike to be together in his story. This is almost as strange to Jesus’ disciples as the idea of a suffering Messiah! The disciples not only had religious blinders that prevented them from accepting a suffering Messiah, but they also had cultural blinders that kept them from seeing this story as a story for the Gentiles, too.

How do you become a part of Jesus’ story?

Still, if you hear—really hear—the story, it calls for a response. It’s not just a story to be heard. It’s a story that calls for a response, and the response is repentance, “repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” according to Jesus. Do you know what that means? Ultimately, it means that God’s plan is to bring you into the story of Jesus! 

Repentance is our response to the story, our response to an offer of forgiveness of sins! “Repentance” is not just a scary, religious-sounding word. It really means realigning your life to fit God’s preferred story for your life. He has a purpose! It also means that even though God is the author, you have free will.  You can determine the outcome of your story within the parameters God has set. He doesn’t force you. But if you receive Jesus, you receive forgiveness and eternal life. 

Can you become an eyewitness?

We are witnesses, too. A witness can only testify to what they have actually observed. We can witness, we can tell the story, because we are indeed part of Jesus’ resurrection story! When we receive Jesus, we receive resurrection life. We are personal witness of the Resurrection of Jesus.

We are not just told to witness. Jesus says that we are witnesses. If I observe something, I’m a witness whether I testify in court or not. If we really have seen it, we won’t be able to keep from testifying about it. 

So here’s how you’re included in the story: a) you choose to be part of the story through turning to Jesus and his plan for your life, and b) you become a personal witness because Jesus has done something in your heart. He has truly opened your spiritual eyes and your mind to the reality of God’s love. As his witness, you find that the spreading of the story is a part of the story!

Is the story the same?

The details may vary, but the main elements of God’s story remain true for us: We have to have our minds opened to understand the things of God, and we have to be empowered to live the lives God wants us to live. You are not a powerless bit player in a meaningless story. We live empowered by the Holy Spirit. How can we live any other way? 

This is my story.

I want to share how my story became a part of the greatest story ever told. I was raised in the church, but as a teen, I rebelled against God and embarked on a journey of alcohol and drug abuse and a self-destructive lifestyle. I dropped out of college, joined the Army, and then returned to my previous college. During the first weeks there, a classmate named Mary prayed for me. The powerful words that lodged in my mind were these: “God, use him as you’ve called him to be used.” When she prayed those words, I had two sudden thoughts. One: God was calling me to follow him; God had a call on my life! The second thought, one that I don’t talk about near as much, was this: God has been working through all my life, the good and the bad, to get me right here. One way of saying that is that God had a story written for my life. And here’s the important thing to know about God and stories: God is writing one big story that not only includes the story of my life; it includes the story of your life.