Imagine I told you we were going to have a conversation about classic story structure, and invited you to finish the following sentence: “and they all lived…” Exactly. We all know it. In most cases, we probably expect it. And while it’s obviously not true of every story, the opposites are infrequent or undesirable enough that “and they all lived terribly ever after” just isn’t a thing we say.
Think of the last fictional book you read or movie you watched (ones that actually resolved the story, not the ones with the cliffhanger setting up for the sequel) and I can almost guarantee there was a scene involving the punishment of the “bad guys” before seeing the happy future for the “good guys”. Because in many ways, part of that happy ending involves this acknowledgement that the evil ones are getting what they had coming, fair retribution for what they have done to the world and to the protagonists themselves. We know in our hearts, even in our fictional stories, that bad things deserve punishment, and a “happily ever after” with evil still on the loose just isn’t “happy” or “ever after”.
As I mentioned a few moments ago, today we’re going to get to the resolution of the prophetic story in the book of Joel. And in that resolution, we’re going to see everything required for that proper “happily ever after”.
