All it took was a story...

 
All it took was an image. A story.

For weeks we hear the statistics

 

3620 dead in 8 months. Amongst which would have been numerous 3 year olds.

But the headlines continued.

Our politician’s stance became more entrenched.

And then a story.

An image.

3 year old Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a beach.

And everything changes.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe, in the case of Aylan Kurdi, that this is a good thing. It has woken many up to the needs. The statistic back it up. The Bible does too – it always has:

"When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 19:33-34).

But is it always a good thing that a story changes everything?

I would argue no.

Take assisted suicide. Supporters will fling aside evidence and common sense and present a story of someone who took their life to avoid a terribly painful death for example here. And they do it because it works – it sways public opinion. And it risks swaying our lawmakers.

So what can we take from this? Here’s just three.

 

1. Embrace the power of story

Doesn’t this sudden change in mood seem strange? An overnight shift, reflected by the Daily Mail’s front page above.

And yet it isn’t strange.

 

We live in the age of the image. Of the story.

Narrative and stories hold great power.

 

And yet postmodernism doesn’t have a monopoly on stories. Christians believe THE greatest story ever told. God doesn’t present us with facts and figures. He presents us with a person, Jesus Christ, who lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should die. We can boldly present God’s story – lived out in the stories of our lives. But we mustn’t stop with an emotional story - we must also explain the truth and in many cases the evidence that lies behind it.

2. Beware the power of story

Our postmodern age says that just because something moves us emotionally it must be true.
Even if it displaces logic, or flies in the face of the facts.

But we know this isn’t always the case. One might suspect there will be a backlash soon against immigrants when the mood changes and we are perceived to have taken in ‘too many’.

So we need to soberly examine our emotions against the truth of scripture.

3. Mob rule...rules?

When there is media outcry, politician’s minds are changed.

“First of all a couple of articles are written, or documentaries produced, which question what was previously taboo; then the prophets of our age, the stand up comics, take on the “new radical cause”, the soap operas introduce the subject favourably, the opinion polls tell us “what the people think”, social media kicks in and finally the politicians and judges catch up. Anyone who dares question the new establishment morality is sidelined, abused and mocked" George Robertson, Solas CPC

Where is God in this? What happens when mob rule threatens our freedoms like it threatens to with assisted suicide just next week?

And yet in the most profound miscarriage of justice ever, where mob rule condemned Jesus to death, God was supremely in control.

We can trust that he is in charge, even when mob rule prevails; when it seems good to us as in the case of Aylan Kurdi, and when it doesn’t.