One of the great joys of a good book is its ability to thread multiple plots and multiple ideas and multiple messages into the telling of a "ripping good yarn,â?� as a Charles Dickens contemporary might have stated it. Indeed, Dickens has for centuries been known for building social commentary into his riveting fiction, alternately racing hearts as he braces minds with the cold water of his condemning word-pictures.

 

     One of the great sorrows of the Good Book is the inability of most of its readers to notice its' majestic complexity. No other gathering of writing is its' equal. Where other books point people to dreamed states or remind them of humanity's brokenness, Scripture speaks not only to the brokenness but to its promised Redemption, too; Redemptions played out not only on the Cross and in Revelation, but in the tiny victories of the two-steps forward, one-step back servants of God whose best efforts seem never enough butâ?¦always areâ?¦enough, because Jesus is always enough. Like a book written to two audiences, it first warns of impending peril as our soul faces the judgment of a God so holy that even tiny sins rend the fabric of Creation. Just when the reader is deep enough in the story of Israel to know that humans will always rebel against God and will never live faithfully without a miracle, the Miracle breaks out in the story of the baby Jesus.