The World Remade

J.R.R. Tolkien's vision of Redemption and a New Creation

Something is truly broken.

We feel it in the air.
We see it daily in the news.
Our bodies are weighed down by it.
Our hearts beat with a constant ache.
Somehow we all know:
This is not how things are supposed to be.
And yet the world is fractured.
And it feels like it will always be this way.

Is there any hope?
Does the story just end this way?
In brokenness and darkness?

In Tolkien's story The Lord of the Rings, the ending is not what you would expect.

In so many of our stories, the conflict at the end is often resolved in such a way that it seems as though the world now is perfect and absent of any further problems or evil. It's the "and everyone lived happily ever after." sentiment. But this is not the way with Middle-earth: Frodo goes off to the Undying Lands (Valinor) because his grief and wound is too much to carry, the world is still riddled with evil beings, the presence of lingering darkness remains and things that were lost in the conflict will never come back the same - or come back ever again at all. As Gandalf spoke, 'Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.' 

This is the cycle of a broken world.
Tolkien was in touch with reality.

A battle is won only to give way to another down the road. Evil is conquered only for it to arise in a new form later. This is honest, and Tolkien shared this type of honesty when it came to his own unique view of history:  'Actually I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’ – though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.' (Letter 195). 

Our very own history feels like a long defeat, but there are glimpses of a final victory, and unknown to many readers, Tolkien actually had this sketched out for the world and story of Middle-earth...

This treasure of an excerpt is taken from The History of Middle-earth series in the volume "Morgoth's Ring" (Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth). The conversation is between an Elvish King and a mortal woman in the First Age. They are speaking of a prophecy, a rumored future day where their broken world will be finally and fully remade!

Andreth: “They say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end... How could Eru enter into the thing that He has made and that which He is beyond measure greater? Can the singer enter into his tale or the designer into his picture?”

Finrod: “He is already in it, as well as outside. But indeed the in-dwelling and the out-living are not in the same mode.”

Andreth: “But they speak of Eru Himself entering into Arda, and that is a thing wholly different. How could He the greater do this? Would it not shatter Arda, or indeed all Ëa?”

Finrod: “Ask me not. These things are beyond the compass of the wisdom of the Eldar, or of the Valar maybe. But I doubt that our words may mislead us, and that when you say ‘greater’ you think of the dimensions of Arda, in which the greater vessel may not be contained in the less. But such words may not be used of the Measureless. If Eru wished to do this, I do not doubt that He would find a way, though I cannot foresee it. For, as it seems to me, even if He in Himself were to enter in, He must still remain also as He is: the Author without. And yet, Andreth, to speak with humility, I cannot conceive how else this healing could be achieved... Therefore Eru, if He will not relinquish His work to Melkor, who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer Him.”

Finrod: “More: even if Melkor (or the Morgoth that He has become) could in any way be thrown down or thrust from Arda, still his Shadow would remain, and the evil that he has wrought and sown as a seed would wax and multiply. And if any remedy for this is to be found, ere all is ended, any new light to oppose the shadow, or any medicine for the wounds: then it must, I deem, come from without.”

What a stunning excerpt. This is about Arda, the world of Middle-earth, being healed and made whole. But the remaking is not just a patchwork repair of a broken thing. Earlier in the conversation it is said, "For that Arda Healed shall not be Arda Unmarred, but a third thing and a greater, and yet the same." This is not just the world unbroken, but the world remade in a new kind of glory, beauty and perfection.

There is so much to think about here as a Tolkien nerd and fan… but I am less interested in the implications for Tolkien's story and much more interested in what it points to for the story you and I are living in right now. It is not a surprise to many to know that Tolkien was a professing and devout Christian who believed the words of the Bible as true and real. As a believer and disciple of Jesus, he shared a real hope for this world that bleeds out here in the story he was writing - a hope that we all are looking for.

Can the singer enter into his tale or the designer into his picture?
- Andreth

We see in this conversation a clear and striking echo of what Christians call the story of the Gospel (the good news) - that this world is utterly broken and filled with evil and there are demonic beings that are breathing destruction into every square inch of creation and that there is nothing we can do to rid it or ourselves of the darkness and sin - so God, the Creator, must enter into our world to heal it and defeat evil Himself. 
It's what Finrod says above: "And if any remedy for this is to be found, ere all is ended, any new light to oppose the shadow, or any medicine for the wounds: then it must, I deem, come from without." Help must come from outside of ourselves. The author must enter into His own story while remaining outside of it -- it is a wild truth that no other religion comes close to sharing.

God enters into the suffering of this broken world out of His own love for it and creates a way out through his own suffering and death! He promises a New Creation, one with no death, no pain, no mourning and no darkness! 

Oh I long for this. Death feels like such a piecing a violation of what is natural. The kind of tragedy, trauma and loss that we have to experience as humans in our lives is unbearable. It's unnatural. It's unthinkable. There are no words for it. 

It’s not suppose to be this way - and the good news that Tolkien knew is that it wouldn’t always be this way. 

I am not sure what you believe about God, this life and the brokenness you probably experience all around you and within your own life. But I do want to encourage you to linger on this reality: though the world is broken, there is a promise that one day it will be remade, that God is not leaving His creation in this state, that He has entered into the story and will one day come back to “wipe away every tear” and banish all that is evil.

The hope isn’t in a religion or following certain laws but in a person, Jesus, God who took on flesh, the Poet entering his own poem, the One who has the power and love to remake this world into a new and beautiful thing.

The one we are all longing to live in!
A world where all the sad things will come untrue. 

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