The Whole Story.

On a recent tour of a church, the tour guide mentioned an earlier tour for children where she pointed to the twelve chandeliers and said there was one for each disciple. After a brief pause, a child asked: “Why did you include Judas?” Without hesitation, the tour guide replied: “Because he’s part of the story.”

I was intrigued by the question, and found the answer provocative, but when we walked down the hall where a time-line of the church spoke of the church’s involvement in the Civil War I did not feel the same. Describing North Carolina’s decision to secede, and the church’s willingness to donate its bell to melt and make bullets for the Confederate Army, I wondered why they would include that in the time-line. Just as I asked the question, I knew the answer: “Because it’s part of the story.”

So often we want to present only part of our story. We want to highlight our history and include only the relationships that went well, the events that were successful, and the decisions that were right, but it leaves us with only a partial narrative. To leave out Judas is to leave out a critical part of the Gospel. To avoid the church’s involvement in the Civil War is to candy-coat the way things really were. So to, to omit the darker moments of our story is to lose its depth. 

To me, the Gospel frees us from such editing. In Christ, we are free to tell our whole story. Yes, there are parts that may make others cringe, (They may make us cringe too!) but that shouldn’t keep us from telling our story fully. Who knows, maybe in the telling of our whole story we can find the depth and breadth of God’s whole love.