There's nothing like a good story to lift our spirits. Our lives can seem overwhelming, but reading about or watching someone overcome even bigger obstacles can help us put our own struggles into perspective. When God wrote the Story of Jesus as the template for all stories, he didn't spare him any of the hardships that we all face. Relationship requires relatability, and Jesus came to restore the relationship between God and man. But God also provided for Jesus all the rewards, that we might be reminded to hope.
The Reward
"I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."
Luke 19:40
Stories tend to move back and forth between positive moments and negative. Often this is deliberately worked in from one scene to the next within the various steps. Sometimes it happens from one step to the next. The Ordeal is a difficult time for the Hero. Even if she comes through victorious, having faced death, literal or symbolic, the Ordeal has taken a toll on her. The Reward moves the story into a more positive moment.
The Ordeal is a fight. The Reward is a moment for the story to slow down, to let the characters (and audience) catch their breath. Often this is a love scene. At the very least it's a moment of bonding, as the characters realize the importance of their friends.
In the first Thor movie, the Ordeal is when Thor attempts to reclaim his hammer and is unable to because of his unworthiness. The hammer represents his identity as the first of son Asgard and as a warrior. When he finds he can no longer take up his iconic weapon, he is humiliated. Sacrificing everything he believed about himself allows Thor to claim a greater reward: friendship. Obviously, if you have seen the movie, you know that claiming this reward leads Thor to his moment of ultimate sacrifice and total redemption.
After Jesus confronted death and overcame it, by calling Lazarus from his tomb, he continued teaching for a time. But his Journey was to go to his ultimate sacrifice and our total redemption. Luke tells us, "And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem." If you've been around a church in the early spring, you know about Palm Sunday, with all the little Sunday schoolers waving palm branches (and someone inevitably getting poked in the eye). "As he was drawing near... the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen."
Matthew tells us that Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey fulfilled another ancient prophecy, and it did. But at the time, to those shouting, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" it looked like a huge celebration of all that Jesus had done and everything they expected him to do. Yes, they misunderstood much. They thought he was coming to set up an earthly kingdom, having only a vague idea of the broken relationship between God and man that Jesus was actually coming to mend. Nevertheless, they weren't wrong to throw a party. The Pharisees told Jesus to make the crowd settle down. He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."
The Reward must be celebrated.
Our lives may seem like one Ordeal after another. Yet for those of us who have put our hope in God, we have a promise. Paul reminds that, "For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
Paul doesn't downplay that what we suffer now is affliction. Here and now, the pain is heartrending and intense. But he puts it in the perspective of eternity. When we enter into unending days wrapped in God's love, today's agonies will seem like a blink of mild discomfort.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
Psalm 42:11
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