On Eucatastrophe

*And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” - Revelation 21:5

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue?” -Samwise Gamgee*

While grief and sadness are not exactly synonymous, most are well-acquainted with at least one of them. That is because the darkness comes in many forms. For some, it is the perpetual cloudy day, the Eeyore effect, if you will. An inability to see beyond the nearest inconvenience. For some it’s less of a cloudy day and more of a rainy one, where the sadness can be at least attributed to something tangible that can be touched and seen, even if that thing is ultimately insignificant. Children know this feeling well, as the rain may cancel longed-for games or events on a Saturday morning. Perhaps your sadness is that of a torrential downpour with high winds tossing you about, like a small sailboat that found itself much farther out from the shore than ever intended, and now hardly a breath can be taken before another wave cascades over the short walls. You just can’t seem to get out in front of it, emptying your sinking vessel with a shot glass instead of a bucket. And of course, there is an even deeper type of sadness that feels a bit like drowning when you don’t know how to swim. You fight it at first, thrashing about in a feeble attempt to float, but as you begin to realize that your struggling just makes the refracting light on the surface slip farther and farther away, you stop, and you just sink, letting the ocean swallow you like it did the prophet Jonah.

In Tolkien’s 1939 lecture “On Fairy-Stories”, Tolkien outlined what has become sort of the modern archetype for fantasy literature. Tolkien described an event that often takes place in fantasy literature which he dubbed the “eucatastrophe”. Eucatastrophe is defined as a sudden turn of the tide for the better, like when you’re a little child sadly staring out the window at the rainy day that ruined your hopes of soccer, and suddenly a crack of light shines through the clouds. One of the most obvious examples of eucatastrophe in Tolkien’s literature is the resurrection of Gandalf after he is lost in the mines of Moria. Upon discovering that Gandalf has somehow miraculously returned from the dead, our dear Sam exclaims the following: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad goingto come untrue?” The return of his dear friend brings him hope; **the resurrection brings him hope.**

Not a superficial longing for something a little better than he has already, not wishful thinking. No, this hope is far stronger than that. It’s a hope so powerful that it foresees all evil coming undone, all brokenness being made whole, all sadness coming untrue. If this is Sam’s response, how much more should our response be to our God overcoming death? Christ has promised us everything and more that dear old Sam could ever have imagined in his fleeting moment of hope when He said, as recorded in Revelation 21:5 “Behold, I am making all things new.” So take heart! Whether you are Eeyore, a sad child on a drizzly Saturday morning, or a sailor lost at sea, the eucatastrophe of our story has already happened. The tides have already turned. The end is already written that we will join Him in the Holy City and He will dwell with us.

- Brian, and your elders.