A line spoken by Faramir, in The Lord of Rings, pierced my heart and grief. Although full of Christian truths and values, The Lord of the Rings is not, Tolkien insists, a Christian allegory. Middle earth is perhaps best understood as a pre-Christian world. There are some mentions of “a change of days” that will someday happen, but it is unclear what this change will bring or whether after death there is any hope of life.
Hope, and often hopelessness, are common themes throughout Tolkien’s work. Before sending Frodo on his way, Faramir tells him that his quest to destroy the ring is “a hard doom and a hopeless errand.” Much of the LOTRs is about doing what is right when there is no or slim hope of success. Gandalf says there is only a “fool’s hope” of destroying the ring of power. Here Faramir agrees with Gandalf and says to Frodo: “If ever beyond hope you return to the land of the living and we re-tell our tales, sitting by a wall in the sun, laughing at old grief, you shall tell me then.”
These words were spoken in one of Frodo’s darkest moments, right before he leaves the safety of Faramir’s protection and enters again into Mordor. Neither Frodo nor Faramir have reason to believe the quest to destroy the ring will succeed. And yet, there is this hope we will someday sit “by a wall in the sun, laughing at old grief.”
I have similar hopes. All my family vacations as a child and a parent have been on the Oregon coast near Yachats. Even in the summer, the north wind whipping down the beach could drive you to seek the radiant warmth of rock wall. I can still point to the rock where my mother nestled as she read her books and knitted her afghans. After playing in the surf, my brothers and I would seek the warmth of rocks on Cape Creek beach in the southern shadow of Cape Perpetua.
We would bask in the sun and retell tales from past camping trips. We would laugh about past mishaps and injuries. We would talk about what had been happy and sad. We would laugh about the trivial griefs of a happy family—a rain- soaked tent, lost toys, falls on wet rocks in the creek. In the roar of the surf under the blue sky, many hard and sad things lost their sting.
I believe in Jesus and the resurrection and a new heaven and earth. I hope to sit in the sun by a wall and laugh at grief with my father and mother. I hope to again walk beside my brother Stanley and rejoice in the glory of God’s new creation. I will again, I hope, walk in the sun with Peter and rejoice at the mercy of God that saved him right before he died.
Teckla and I will laugh at the days when she could not remember her name or mine. We will laugh at how wonderfully God remembered her when she couldn’t. We will marvel at how much good came from obedience when Jesus was our only hope. In the light and warmth of His glory we will “retell our tales.” Chapter by chapter, we will see how God’s mercy and wisdom ennobled us and prepared all things for the return of the King.
