Eucatastrophe is the coming untrue of all sin, evil, and death. And where that starts is the empty tomb of the risen Jesus.
Every good story has a turning point – where the wrong is undone, where what is broken is fixed, where the hurt is healed, and where the bad comes untrue. The Roman Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien was no stranger to good stories. In his works, now beloved by millions, Tolkien relates to readers the epics of his invented world of Middle Earth.
However, Tolkien did not just invent a fictional world for these books. He invented whole races of creatures and languages for them to speak. He also invented a word that describes the turning point in a story where all the bad is undone and good triumphs over evil. That word is eucatastrophe.
In his essay, On Fairy-Stories, Tolkien describes the nature of eucatastrophe and how it is at the heart of every good story (In The Tolkien Reader. New York: Ballentine, 1966, 85).
Eucatastrophe is the opposite of catastrophe. A catastrophe is when everything goes horridly unexpectedly wrong. Tolkien knew catastrophe in his own life. He experienced the deaths of both his father and mother during his childhood. He then lived through being disowned and abandoned by his grandparents. In the hell of the Battle of the Somme, one of the worst battles of World War I, Tolkien watched in horror as his best friends were blown to bits. Later in life, he suffered the shock of his wife dying without warning from gallstones—a condition that should have been treatable. [1]
There is no shortage of catastrophes in our world today: wars, famine, genocide, mass shootings. There’s no shortage of catastrophes in our personal lives either: cancer, depression, anxiety, addiction, broken relationships, and the deaths of those we love mark each of our lives.
People often criticize Tolkien’s work as “escapist,” saying that The Lord of the Rings and other stories of Middle-Earth simply provide a way out of reality that avoids the brutal facts of life and suffering. Nothing could be further from the truth. Aside from the very serious evils and agonies that the characters face in Tolkien’s fiction, Tolkien’s own philosophy of literature and life precluded escapism—at least escapism as denial.
In On Fairy-Stories, Tolkien argues that if there is any escapism in his fiction and philosophy, it is an escapism that is good, right, and salutary. For Tolkien, real escapism is not denying the harsh realities and sufferings of life; it is overcoming them or, rather, having them overcome for us. And, says Tolkien, the greatest evil has indeed been overcome for us, and thus we have escaped it. That evil is death, and its overcoming happens through eucatastrophe (“On Fairy-Stories,” 83).
Eucatastrophe isn’t a fairytale denial of the realities of sin, evil suffering, and death in the world. Eucatastrophe isn’t closing our eyes to catastrophe. It isn’t pretending to live in non-reality. Instead, eucatastrophe is the turning point from catastrophe. It’s the end of catastrophe. It’s the coming-un-true of catastrophe. Ultimately, eucatastrophe is the coming untrue of all sin, evil, and death. And where that starts is the empty tomb of the risen Jesus.
Eucatastrophe is what Mary Magdalene and the other women witnessed when they came to that empty tomb. These women had experienced the catastrophe two days before. Jesus, the teacher they followed and loved, died and was crucified on a Roman cross. To the women, and to all those who followed Jesus—whether they were disciples like Peter, James, and John who went everywhere with him or those like Joseph of Arimathea who tried to follow him from a distance—to all of them, the death of Jesus was a great catastrophe. As the disciples on the road to Emmaus would say about Jesus, they had hoped that he would redeem Israel (Luke 24:21). They had hoped that Jesus was the Messiah that God had promised them. They expected the Messiah to get rid of the Roman occupiers, to liberate the promised land, and to unite all of God’s people in a time of peace and prosperity.
But the events that began to unfold on Thursday evening and moved with break-neck speed through Friday dashed all of these hopes. The catastrophe unfolded before them in living color. Jesus, their would-be Messiah, was betrayed, arrested, falsely accused, handed over to the Romans, interrogated, condemned to death, crowned with thorns, mocked, spit upon, beaten, and finally, crucified. In the terror, all of the disciples fled. Mary Magdalene and the other women looked on from afar as Jesus died in horrible suffering and terribly alone. The catastrophe reached its fevered pitch when Jesus cried out in agony of body and soul: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34)
As Jesus breathed his last and died, the catastrophe shook heaven and earth. Darkness covered the land. Tombs opened, and dead people walked through the streets. The temple veil was torn from top to bottom. Jesus was dead (Mark 15:33-38; Matt. 27:52-53).
Then, right at this point, when everything looked bleak and utterly hopeless, the catastrophe began to turn to eucatastrophe—not just the denial of Jesus’ death but its complete undoing! The stone was rolled away! The portal of the tomb stood open!
Before the women had any time to speculate about who might have done this deed, the Easter gospel was proclaimed to them: “You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you” (Mark 16:6-7).
His resurrection is ours. His eucatastrophe is ours!
As Tolkien himself recognized, this is the turning point in the true story of the Good News of Jesus. It is the complete reversal and undoing of the worst catastrophe ever: eternal death. For in the resurrection of Christ, not only is the death of Jesus undone. Ours is undone, too! Jesus’ eucatastrophe is our eucatastrophe!
Jesus is risen, and his resurrection is our resurrection. For we are baptized into Jesus; we are baptized into his resurrection. His resurrection is ours. His eucatastrophe is ours! His triumph over sin, over death, and over Satan is ours! Jesus is risen, and one day, we will rise, too. Yes, we will one day breathe our last. But then, on the last day, Jesus will turn the catastrophe of our death around. He will make our death come untrue.
But the eucatastrophe of Jesus is not just for us. The resurrection of Jesus is not just the turning point in our story. It is also the turning in the story of all creation. Because Jesus has risen from the dead, all death will come untrue. All of the effects of sin, all of the hurts we have—all of the sins we have committed against others and all the ones committed against us will come untrue. All of the wars, genocides, destruction of this planet, and chaos in creation and humanity will come untrue. As Tolkien confessed, the resurrection of Jesus guarantees the eucatastrophe of all creation. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, everything broken will be healed, everything wrong will be put right, and everything bad will come untrue (“On Fairy-Stories,” 88-89).
[1] Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien: A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977), 16, 30-31, 82-86, 252.
