An Epic Life of Jesus Parable
A Labor of Love
June 2020
Today’s Christian Background
The story of Jesus of Nazareth is a tale for every time – simple on the surface, but inexhaustible in its depth. Does a reader want a clear-cut, good against evil plot? That’s definitely in it. But what if one is looking for a nuanced work, filled with wisdom only found in profound mystery? That’s in there too. The living paradox that Jesus Christ is has made Him the most written-about character in all of human history.
With so much going for it, why is the story of Jesus so out of fashion for western minds? Two packages that the story is wrapped in don’t help.
The Christian Church is the oldest multinational in the world.
Christian Churches, and Roman Catholicism in particular, suffer from 2100 years of accumulated baggage. In his worst moment, on trial with crucifixion staring him in the face, Jesus said that He was a king. But that His kingdom was not of this world. His Church, down through the centuries, has done a poor job of managing the separation of spiritual and worldly power.
As with all multinationals, the Church struggles with outdated group think and the drag of accumulated worldly assets. It is run by self-serving hierarchies disconnected from those whom it purports to serve. Scandals abound, but can be ignored by management. The supposed greater good of the corporation’s lofty mission trumps everything.
The institutional Church too easily forgets that its true calling from Jesus is deeply individualized. Every person’s mission from God is to become the best version of themselves. The version that Jesus knows is in there, no matter how deeply buried. The Church’s mission is to help each person in his or her our own spirit war. Because that Spirit War is so universal and important, yet so neglected and covered up, this author chose it as the title for his trilogy.
The Bible itself is the other difficulty with the story of Christ for modern readers
The Bible is God speaking to humankind through inspired authors. Many were great, famous men, but many others are anonymous. And none of them could have known how what they wrote, over a period of 1500 years, would fit into the whole. Yet here it is: God’s anthology of 66 (Protestant) or 73 (Catholic) books, meant for all of us. Together they reveal an evolving, beautiful, inspiring story of God’s approach to, and love for, every human being.
The problem with the Bible is that it is difficult reading. Some Old Testament books are downright boring, with no apparent relevance to modern readers. Crucially, a historical frame of reference for each book, and how it fits into the whole over many centuries, is not provided. This game changing information had to wait until the modern era. Many contemporary bible versions do a great job of complementing scriptural text with important historical context. This author’s favorite for enlightening additional information throughout is the New International Version Student Bible.
The Bible’s two main divisions, the Old and New Testaments, can be likened to a tree
The Old Testament provides the Bible’s roots – totally necessary but difficult to get at. The New Testament is the tree we all can see above ground – beautiful and fruitful. As with a tree, the part we enjoy is an outgrowth of, and totally dependent on, the roots. But analogies have limits. Not all of the Old Testament is boring or irrelevant. Many parts are beautiful, inspiring and important. On the whole, though, because of its length and the difficulty in fitting its parts together, the Old Testament is an acquired taste. A new reader approaching the Bible for the first time should start with its most appealing fruit. The four New Testament Gospels are all biographies of Jesus Christ, the Bible’s central character.
Why the Spirit War trilogy
Jesus of Nazareth, and every man and woman alive, deserve better than the declining following the Redeemer of us all is getting in the 21st century West. Is there a way to bring people turned off by institutional Christianity, or the difficulty of the Bible, to Him? The Spirit War was written to attempt just that. And as a bonus, it can provide a generous helping of teaching, entertainment and inspiration to those already committed to Him.
Jesus himself was a bundle of paradoxes: fully a man, but also the Son of God; the bane of his people’s religious establishment, but also a sacrificial lamb – obedient to the point of death on a cross. He worked healing miracles and raised people from death, yet he himself died. The Son of God had control over nature. Just by exerting his will He could walk on water, multiply food, drive free-swimming fish into nets, and calm a storm instantly. But Christ did not use that power to save himself from a humiliating, excruciatingly painful death at the hands of his enemies. And finally, Jesus the Messiah was a dead man who rose from his grave, alive forever.
As Jesus Christ is a paradox, so is The Spirit War in combining two very different storytelling forms
Epics
An epic is a folk tale of a hero on a quest for a life-changing prize. Epics are always big stories, important to the culture from which they spring. They span long time periods and take place in both human and spirit dimensions. There are many characters, human and supernatural. Good personages help the hero in his quest. Villains and enemies oppose him at every turn. Epics are long, many running to hundreds of pages.
Well-known classic epics come to us from by-gone cultures. The Iliad and The Odyssey (Ancient Greece), The Aeneid (Rome), and Beowulf (Nordic Europe) are examples. Modern epics can be books or movies or both. Ben Hur, The Lord of the Rings, and the first Star Wars trilogy should all be familiar to modern readers.
Parables
Parables are pithy, made-up stories to illustrate a situation or teach a truth. Their plots involve mundane situations, far from any heroic quest. Characters are understood to be hypothetical, not real persons. They can be from any social level, from beggars to kings, but they always face specific problems. The resolutions of the every-day, easily understandable situations the characters face teach a lesson. Because they usually focus on only one idea, parables are always short – only a few paragraphs. Teachers use parables to make a point, using hypothetical examples, about how things work in real life.
Jesus of Nazareth is hands-down the genius of the parable. Many of His short stories have become folklore. His most common introductions to parables are phrases such as “The Kingdom of Heaven is like….” or “There once was a man who…..”
The Spirit War is an epic Life of Jesus parable
The trilogy is epic due to its basic plot of a hero on a quest. It is also cosmic in scope – spanning multiple dimensions, time and eternity. And it presents many human and spirit characters, interacting for or against the hero.
The Spirit War is a parable despite not conforming to two parable characteristics. It is not short, but instead epic in length. And its main human characters are not hypothetical, but real people who walked our earth.
But the trilogy becomes hypothetical, as parables are, due to its elaborate embellishment of the Gospels. The dictionary defines verbal embellishment as “a fictitious addition to a factual statement.” Just so, The Spirit War takes the gospels’ true story of Jesus Christ into the realm of fantasy fiction. Within this expanded domain, the trilogy proposes made-up particulars as to how and why the events in the life of the Messiah and His followers unfolded the way they did.
True to the purpose of parables, The Spirit War makes the basic points of the Gospels. That Jesus Christ was God made fully human. That He died on a cross to win the prize of forgiveness of sins and eternal life for all who accept Him as their loving Lord. And that in rising from His grave Jesus defeated Satan and the Evil One’s masterpiece, Death itself.
The Spirit War is a Labor of Love
Regardless of what storytelling form is used to describe this trilogy, its author hopes his purpose in writing this labor of love shines through. The Spirit War was written to present the story of Jesus of Nazareth as the great read it deserves to be for 21st century readers – believers or not.