Summary
In the animated version of The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh, Tigger bounces himself right out of the book and into a tree where he finds himself stuck. A voice says, “It seems that the spring in your tail has bounced you into a bit of trouble.” Rather surprised Tigger responds, “Who are you?” “I’m the narrator,” is the reply. “Well then, for goodness sake, narrate me down from here,” pleads Tigger.
It raises some profound questions: Are we characters in a story that’s already been written? If your life is a story being told by someone else; is it possible to bounce yourself out of your own story? If there is a narrator, could he meet us at the tree and narrate us back into the author’s book?
In Genesis Chapter One, God creates all things, beginning to end with a Narrator, and on the 7th day “It is finished” and “Everything is very good.”
In Genesis Chapter Two, not all is created and not everything is good, so it’s no longer the 7th day; the Narrator has taken us back to the 6th day for God is creating Adam. And “It is not good for the Adam to be alone,” says the Narrator.
In Genesis Chapter Three, on the 6th day, Adam (who is us) bounces himself out of the book and into a tree, where he starts arguing with the Narrator. How is that possible?
Some say that we don’t have “free will,” which implies that we’re just objects—characters in another person’s story. But objects don’t ponder these questions or bounce themselves out of the Author’s book.
Some say that we do have “free will,” which implies that we’re the subject—that is that each of us is the author of our own story. That implies that there really is no story; everything is just the “roll of the dice,” chaos.
The Book of Esther masterfully addresses all of these questions, and yet does so without even mentioning the name of God.
Esther is a Jewish orphan being raised by her uncle Mordecai sometime around 485 BC in the Persian capital of Susa. King Xerxes throws a great feast and, while drunk, orders that Queen Vashti appear before all of his guests “with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at.” Vashti refuses. According to the ancient Rabbis, “with her royal crown,” meant “with only her royal crown.”
Xerxes flies into a rage, banishes Vashti, and orders his servants to round up all the “beautiful young virgins” and place them in the royal harem so that he can sample them and find one to replace Queen Vashti. Esther was one of those taken, for she “had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at.”
King Xerxes picks Esther, “so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.” Even though she is the “Playmate of the Year,” Esther didn’t win. Esther has been objectified; don’t expect too much from Esther.
Meanwhile, Xerxes promotes a man named “Haman the Agagite” to second in command of the Empire. One Day when Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman, Haman decides to enact genocide against all the Jews and “rolls the dice (purim)” to determine the best date.
Having learned of the plan, Mordecai gets word to Esther and asks her to plead for her people, the Jews. Then Esther gets word to Mordecai that she hasn’t seen the king for thirty days and that appearing unannounced would probably get her killed. Then Mordecai responds “If you keep silent at this time, relief will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
What an idea! Perhaps everything—the Babylonian captivity, Persia’s conquest of Babylon, the death of her parents, her subjugation as a sex slave—it was all determined by the Author of everyone’s story, such that at “such a time as this,” Esther, of all people, would make a choice to sacrifice herself, save “God’s people,” and thus write the rest of the story.
It’s an absurd idea, and yet one that we all entertain every time we think to ourselves, “Perhaps everything has happened for a reason, and now I need to make a decision, a good judgment.”
“Such a time as this” is also called “now.” Now is the point at which eternity touches time. And, in the words of Kierkegaard, “Decision is the awakening to the eternal.”
If what Mordecai postulates is true, Esther has been chosen to choose. And if what Mordecai postulates is not true, Esther has not been chosen, she’s not a character in a story, and there’s really nothing to choose—for everything is the role of the dice.
If Esther has been chosen to choose, then Faith, Hope, and Love are a gift, and faithlessness, hopelessness, and lovelessness aren’t even a choice—only bondage to the roll of the dice.
If Esther has been chosen to choose, it means that someone is writing the story and has written the story to this point, but now that someone is Esther—or in Esther . . . or, perhaps, has always been in Esther, and Esther just found out.
Just the idea (the logos), has “subject-ified,” personified, and even created Esther.
Esther makes a choice as The Choice makes Esther. Everything bad turns into everything Good, and it all hinged upon an eternal moment in the sanctuary of Esther’s soul as she goes from harlot to bride to mother of the New Creation; Esther is the mother of the Jews and the Bride of Christ. “Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
You can bounce yourself out of your own story and into a false self. But even that is part of the story that the Author has written, and the Narrator is telling.
If when you say, “My Story,” you mean the story that you alone have written, you’ve bounced yourself out of the story into a tree and have only written fiction—bad fiction. But, if when you say, “My story,” you mean the story that’s been written through you, the story you’ve given birth to, then you’re being fed at the Tree of Life and you’ve given birth to reality—the Gospel.
The narrator says “Now,” and Tigger wakes to the reality that the narrator is narrating Tigger through Tigger, as Tigger. The Author turns the book on its side. The Narrator says, “You can let go now Tigger.” Tigger lets go of the tree, his own ideas, and literally stands on the Word—the text printed in the book next to the picture of the tree on the side of the page. He then slides down the text until he’s safely grounded in the story. Tigger no longer desires to bounce alone; he teaches everyone to bounce. That’s what Tiggers do best.
On the night that the Narrator was betrayed by all of the characters in his story and just before we bounced him into the tree, he took bread and broke it saying, “This is my body” and he took the cup saying “This is the covenant in my blood. Eat and drink, all of you.”
Consider an idea: Perhaps everything has led you to this moment.
He narrates all things from the inner Sanctuary of your soul.
And NOW he is calling you to join him. It is always NOW.