History is His Story

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.”

—Hebrews 1:1-2

What thoughts come to mind when you think of the word history? Do the syllables conjure up memories of dreadfully boring school assignments and dusty books, prescribed by teachers whose minds were dustier still? Or, does a more romantic feeling overcome you? Feelings of deep mystery and high adventure; long shadows of thought cast by untold, ancient memory and the dwindling light of torches as they dance upon Roman forts and ancient pyramids. Indeed, what does history mean to you?

The Shadow of the Past

            Anyone who has read C.S. Lewis’ The Space Trilogy knows that the plot demands much of the reader and their imagination (and some patience, perhaps). However, as is the case with most of his writing, Lewis rewards careful reading of even his most bizarre and fantastical work—of which That Hideous Strength, the concluding novel to the trilogy, is chief.

            One of the most haunting and beautiful—hauntingly beautiful—passages in the novel takes place in the final third of the novel as three characters—Jane, Dimble, and Arthur—make their way through a dense, wet forest in search of the wizard Merlin from Arthurian legend. At this point in the story, they know not whether Merlin is friend or foe; they simply know that he cannot fall into the hands of their enemies, such that they are willing to risk their lives in either case to find him and secure victory.

In the hands of any other author this scene would play out rather forgettably. Lewis, however, is no ordinary author. In these few pages, he unfolds a lofty meditation on the nature of history and myth and how the two are woven in an almost tangible way. Indeed, there is a visceral physicality to this scene as the characters make their way through the forest—through history itself.

As the three characters venture further into the bowels of the wood in search of Merlin, it is Dimble, the wisest and oldest among the group, who first begins to sense the weight of time and history gathering about them: “‘The Dark Ages,’ thought Dimble; how lightly one had read and written those words. But now they were going to step right into that Darkness. It was an age, not a man, that awaited them in the horrible little dingle. And suddenly all that Britain which had been so long familiar to him as a scholar rose up like a solid thing. He could see it all.”

Dimble, an academic and a Christian, begins in that little dingle to see history not as a mere series of events haphazardly cobbled together, but as a tangible, solid thing one could reach out and touch—or rather, a solid thing that reaches out for you. Not a static set of facts; but a living, almost sentient, breathing story that is pulling everything near unto itself.

Right beside Dimble, however, is Jane. At this point in the novel she has not yet become a Christian and so her perspective on life—and death—is quite different from Dimble’s. As the weight of the wood begins to press in, so do Jane’s thoughts—unlike Dimble, however, her mind turns to religion rather than to the mossy annals of time. Jane’s thoughts are stripped raw of the academic and abstract, leaving with her a question countless others have wrestled with through the long ages since Christ’s ascension. Stumbling through the darkness, with the possibility of death hanging above like a thick cloud, Jane’s mind begins to work:

“If it had ever occurred to her to question whether all these things might be the reality behind what she had been taught at school as ‘religion,’ she had put the thought aside. The distance between these alarming and operative realities and memory, say, of fat Mrs. Dimble saying her prayers, was too wide. The things belonged, for her, to different worlds. On the one hand, terror of dreams, rapture of obedience, the tingling light… and the great struggle against an imminent danger; on the other, the smell of pews, horrible lithographs of the Saviour (apparently seven feet high, with the face of a consumptive girl), the embarrassment of confirmation classes, the nervous affability of clergy-men. But this time, if it was really to be death, the thought would not be put aside. Because, really, it now appeared that almost anything might be true.”      

A Dreadful Gap

At a rather simple level, Jane is completely right—“The things belonged… to different worlds.” What fellowship do creaky church benches and He who commands the stars have with one another? How is it that an infinite and holy God beyond all human comprehension can be reconciled with these more common elements of religion—the smell of pews, dusty hymnals, the warm awkwardness of churchgoers, and the like?

For centuries, a ‘rebuke’ along these lines has been an arrow in the quiver of atheists and skeptics alike—though, a rather blunt one. The scoffers postulate and foam with arguments such as, “How dare you Christians say that yours is the only way! There’s an entire universe out there to be explored and yet you say the One who made it all cares most for the little stuff like marriage and the family and kindness and, worse still, has all sorts of rules against what we can and can’t do with our own bodies! Don’t you think God—if such a Person were to exist—is far too busy to care about things like that?”

Only a few weeks ago, cultural commentator and ‘comedian’ Jon Stewart issued a similar response when asked why he doesn’t believe in God. I’m paraphrasing, but Stewart’s contentions essentially boil down to i) the general problem of suffering, particularly among children, and ii) the explicitly Christian ‘issue’ of extreme specificity.

With respect to extreme specificity, Stewart believes that the truth claims in the Bible are far too narrow and specific. If Christians were to simply claim that there is a good, all-loving, and powerful God,—albeit, one limited to a mere impersonal ‘Force’—this would more or less be palatable to Stewart’s sensibilities.

His true issue rests not in the Christian belief that there is a God, but rather in the firm Biblical assertion that God became flesh. That the infinite became infant, maturing and living among us as a carpenter named Jesus before beginning His earthly ministry, suffering on a Roman cross for sinners, rising again for their justification, and ascending to Heaven where He now rules over all, soon to return.

God’s becoming man is a fact of history that Stewart and his ilk simply cannot accept. It is too specific, it is too narrow (as we should suspect to be the case if the story were true, which it is). Yet in the minds of the skeptics, too much is left out—the gap between their life experience and this vague notion of ‘God’ in their heads is simply too vast. And yet, the Bible’s answer to the protests of both Jon and Jane would be just that: these things do belong to different worlds and are in dire need of the reconciliation that only Christ’s Incarnation can provide.

Indeed, that is very much the point—something is broken and in need of tremendous repair. The dreadful incongruity of this world that both Jon and Jane are troubled by is not the place where the Christian story ends but rather where it begins. For, all has now been brought near by the Lord Jesus Christ: “‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel’ (which means, God with us)” (Matthew 1:23).

The Nucleus of Redemptive History

The Incarnation of Christ so far transcends the calendar date and holiday season of Christmas even as the Lord Himself stands infinitely supreme over all things. The Incarnation, God the Son becoming flesh (John 1:1-14), is no mere footnote in history—it is history. The story of the Gospels is not limited to a chapter title among many or even to the title of the book itself. Rather, Christ’s glorious Incarnation is the richly adorned library in which all other books are contained. There is nothing outside of Him. God becoming man is history; the very nucleus of it, the solid thing to which all others point and find their substance.

For, what is history but His story? Every iota preceding the Incarnation of the Son of God was an echo or mere shadow that strained forward to catch a better look behind the veil; and everything since the Incarnation is an attempt to gaze backwards that we might better look forwards through the eyes of faith to that Day when we shall see Him face to face as believers.

Jesus’ Incarnation—His virgin birth, sinless life, atoning death, and glorious resurrection—functions as the nucleus of history, the central point and weight behind all reality. For remember, though it is small in comparison to the rest of an atom, the nucleus occupies the central mass of the atomic structure and binds all other things within itself.

And as with the innermost part of an atom, God the Son becoming a man named Jesus is the central event of this particular story—of every story. If all recorded and unrecorded history were as a stretched-out bedsheet held tightly by its four corners, Christ’s Incarnation is the 15-pound bowling ball hurled in the middle of it—drawing all else down towards its crushing mass, threatening to rip the very fabric of reality asunder. He is the weight within history; bringing the darkness and barbarity of the past together with the age of the church in His own body, for which He bled and died to save.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:15-20).

History is His Story

Christ’s Incarnation is the bridge between ages, standing amidst the howling chaos of Merlin’s time and the last days in which we now find ourselves; the ladder upon which Heaven and Earth climb and embrace.

When God the Son became man in the historical person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, He closed the chasm between sinful man and holy, holy, holy God—between the mortal and the immortal, between the finite and the infinite. When God took on flesh in the Incarnation, two completely different worlds divided by the Fall were once again brought into communion.

In the Word made flesh, He who forever dwells in light unapproachable condescended with perfect understanding to the very messy, human world of poorly made church coffee, the smell of pews, lisping prayers made by aching hearts, broken homes, broken hearts, hospital visits made black by terminal diagnoses, funerals with crowds too large and caskets far too small, and all the rest, whether happy or sad, which makes up His body, the church.

I began by asking what comes to mind when you think of the word history. To conclude, let’s consider another question: What enters your heart when you consider Christmas? Is it another holiday that swiftly comes and goes, though perhaps with some added liturgy and Christian tradition? Or, do you feel an ache towards something greater? Something—or Someone—greater that is at once deeply mysterious and frightening, yet warm and familiar the more you draw near? Are you, like a little marble rolling across the bedsheet, feeling pulled towards that great Weight in the center?

This season, let us meditate on Christmas and the Incarnation of our Lord not as an event which has come and gone, but as a reality that is presently enduring and conquering. Conquering moment by moment with the spread of the Gospel through the church’s advance in the world; fanning its sweet aroma across a cosmos ruled by our Lord who took on flesh and forever reigns in the flesh as the God-Man—the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

When Dimble peered into the gaping maw of history, terror overcame him because he saw an old world that was yet without her Savior. As Jane came to realize the infinite chasm she was caught between, she too became fearful because she had no saving knowledge of the One who came to bridge the gap. In the Incarnation of Christ our Savior, all this fear has been done away with. In past ages, God spoke through prophets; in the Incarnation of the Son, God has spoken His final Word.

Thus, we need not tremble when we look into the past, dark as the way has been, nor is there cause for fear of the future—it’s His story, after all, and I read someplace that He’s best known for happy endings.

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Author’s Note: This article was originally published on December 30th, 2025 at The Gospel Coalition Canada. You can read the original article by clicking the button below:

The Gospel Coalition Canada

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