Family Favorites

I don't think I've ever really written a book review on the blog, and I don't think I'm going to this time But this post is probably as close as I'll get.

Our family has been reading Detectives in Togas for the third time. When we study Ancient Rome (first Leah and I, then Noah, and now Ethan) we always read this.

So this is the third time and we're still all sitting at the table after breakfast asking Daddy to "read just one more chapter, please?" He reads Ethan's history books in the morning and Noah's history books at lunch and when lunch comes around we're asking him to put Noah's on hold and read another chapter of Detectives in Togas. We have, in the past week, had two extended reading times: school, work, e-mails, phone calls, laundry....it all gets put on hold and Daddy has read for an hour or two. It's a great story.

The whole reason for this post (which sounded much better in my head at 11:00 last night when I thought of it, than it does written out here) is to share a great point that I heard in a sermon one time. I don't remember who it was who said (maybe G.K. Chesterton?) that the great thing about good stories is not the surprise of them, but the surprisingness of them.

It's like this: we've read Detectives in Togas three times. It's not that we don't know if everything's going to resolve at the end (though it's funny that we do forget how it really ends every time we read it), but it's not that. It's rather that the story draws us in and we relive it again and again. We know what happens. We know who the burgler is. We know that none of the boys get killed. We know the story. But in good stories, it's that we can be drawn in again and again and again and it's like we're hearing it for the first time.

The same way we can read The Chronicles of Narnia a hundred times and every time we weep when Aslan is killed. We hope that somehow the cords can be broken. We long for him to look like a lion again. We're afraid the Witch won't die after all. Of course we know how it ends, but it's the surprisingness that gets us every time.

Forgive me laboring the point, but it's the same thing when you read Goodnight Moon five thousand times. "A comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush. And a quiet old lady whispering 'hush.'" Or when your little munchkins ask you to read the same Curious George story again that you read before lunch, and you read before bed the night before and the afternoon before that and the afternoon before that. "This is George. George was a good little monkey but always very curious." It's not that they don't know what happens. They could probably recite the whole thing. But it's rather the entering into the story again. There's something about it that they can get inside of and they want you to let them get inside again....and again and again.

It's the very same thing when we come to the Gospel. We've read the Gospel hundreds of times. We know the Gospel. We read it in the morning when we get up. We read it in family worship. We read it before we go to bed at night, and along the way. We read it and hear it preached at least twice on the Lord's Day. We know what it says. We know that Christ is going to Jerusalem. We know He's going to ask the Father to let the cup pass and the Father will say no. We know He will suffer and be beaten and hung on a cross and die. We know He'll be buried. And we know that on the third day He will rise from the dead. We know that we're joined with Him and that our sin died with Him and we rose with Him and that we're ruling and reigning with Him now - seated in heavenly places. We know all of this. This is what's true and we've heard it hundreds of times. But do we ever get tired of hearing it? Perhaps the difference between good stories and the best story is that the best story gets better every time we hear it. A little sweeter. A little more precious. And we always need to hear it again and it never grows old. It's far more glorious now than the day I first believed!

What a precious story the Lord has written for us in our redemption. "O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise!"