God, the Tragic Hero

The cross of Christ is not a myth; it is THE Myth, the one Story around which all other stories revolve. All stories are fed from it, and all lead to it. The best stories echo it. That is why we love stories of tragic heroes. In the story of the cross we learn that Almighty God, our Creator, our eternal, most beloved Heavenly Parent, Abba, is a tragic hero.
The tragic hero in all literature from the ancient world until today is a noble character with a tragic flaw. God's flaw is that He cannot give up on us! He loves us so much that He is willing to do anything not to be parted from us. Michael Card said it best in a contemporary Christian song: "Could it be that You would really rather die than live without us?" In the cross we see that such total commitment to love utterly destroyed Him. Because we each and every one wander like sheep so far away from our Good Shepherd, the only way He could bring us back to Himself was to become one of us. He knew exactly what that would mean for Him: death on the cross, and He did it anyway. That is love so overpowering that it is, even for the Almighty, a tragic flaw.
The tragic hero can be destroyed, but never, ever defeated. In His death on the Cross, God was in Christ, utterly destroyed by His love for us. Yet in that moment God's nobility was more clearly to be seen than in any other. No one can love anyone more than to be willing to lay down His life for His friends. Love like that is transcendant. Love like that transforms everything it touches, everyone who even hears about it. Love like that changes enemies into friends.
This transforming power of love is the victory of the cross. In dying for love of us our Tragic Hero God took up into Himself all that has gone wrong with the world, and He conquered it. We know about His victory because He raised Jesus from the dead to tell us about it.
Happy Easter!