Please bear with me as I repeat a story that is well-known. Try to imagine yourself part of the story, for you are a part of it:

The Ring of Power, the terrible weapon of the enemy who has tried to bring a great darkness over all the world, has been destroyed. It was not the craft or cunning of any creature of this world that destroyed it, but seeming coincidence, or was it intervention by a Power beyond the world? But now the ring-bearer Frodo and his companion Sam are at the end of their strength, and can only bide their time until the end comes:

"'I am glad that you are here with me,' said Frodo. 'Here at the end of all things, Sam.'

"'Yes, I am with you, Master,' said Sam, laying Frodo's wounded hand gently to his breast. 'And you're with me. And the journey's finished. But after coming all that way I don't want to give up yet. It's not like me, somehow, if you understand.'

"'Maybe not, Sam,' said Frodo; 'but it's like things are in the world. Hopes fail. An end comes. We have only a little time now. We are lost in ruin and downfall, and there is no escape.'

"'Well, Master, we could at least go further from this dangerous place here, from this Crack of Doom, if that's its name. Now couldn't we? Come, Mr. Frodo, let's go down the path at any rate!'

"'Very well, Sam. If you wish to go, I'll come,' said Frodo; and they rose and went slowly down the winding road; and even as they passed the mountain's quaking feet, a great smoke and steam belched from Sammath Naur, and the side of the cone was riven open, and a huge fiery vomit rolled in slow thunderous cascade down the eastern mountain-side.

"Frodo and Sam could go no further. Their last strength of mind and body was swiftly ebbing. They had reached a low ashen hill piled at the Mountain's foot; but from it there was no more escape. It was an island now, not long to endure, amid the torment of Orondruin. All about it the earth gaped, and from deep rifts and pits smoke and fumes leaped up. Behind them the Mountain was convulsed. Great rents opened in its side. Slow rivers of fire came down the long slopes towards them. Soon they would be engulfed. A rain of hot ash was falling. [Ever been there? Ever stood on the brink of utter destruction?]

"They stood now; and Sam still holding his master's hand caressed it. He sighed. 'What a tale we have been in, Mr. Frodo, haven't we?' he said. 'I wish I could hear it told! . . but even while he spoke so to keep fear away until the very last, his eyes strayed north, north into the eye of the wind, to where the sky was clear, as the cold blast rising to a gale, drove back the darkness and the ruin of the clouds.

"And so it was that Gwaihir [the lord of the eagles] saw them with his keen far-seeing eyes, as down the wild wind he came, and daring the great peril of the skies he circled in the air: two small dark figures, forlorn, hand in hand upon a little hill, while the world shook under them, and gasped, and rivers of fire drew near. And even as he espied them and came swooping down, he saw them fall, worn out, or choked with fumes and heat, or stricken down by despair at last, hiding their eyes from death.
 
"Side by side they lay; and down swept Gwaihir, and down came Landroval and Mendeldor the swift; and in a dream, not knowing what fate had befallen them, the wanderers were lifted up and borne far away out of the darkness and the fire.

"When Sam awoke, he found he was lying on some soft bed, but over him gently swayed wide beechen boughs, and through their young leaves sunlight glimmered, green and gold. All the air was full of a sweet mingled scent.

"He remembered that smell: the fragrance of Ithilien. 'Bless me!' he mused. 'How long have I been asleep?' For the scent had borne him back to the day when he had lit his little fire under the sunny bank; and for the moment all else between was out of waking memory. He stretched and drew a deep breath. 'Why, what a dream I've had!' he muttered. 'I am glad to wake!' He sat up and then he saw Frodo was lying beside him, and slept peacefully, one hand behind his head, and the other resting on the coverlet. It was the right hand, and the third finger [that had held the ring] was missing.

"Full memory flooded back, and Sam cried aloud: 'It wasn't a dream! Then were are we?'

"And a voice spoke softly behind him: 'In the land of Ithilian, and in the keeping of the King; and he awaits you.' With that Gandalf stood before him, robed in white, his beard now gleaming like pure snow in the twinkling of the leafy sunlight. 'Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?' he said.

"But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: 'Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?'

"'A great shadow has departed,' said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then, as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.
'How do I feel?' he cried. 'Well, I don't know how to say it. I feel, I feel'--he waved his arms in the air--'I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I've ever heard!'" (Tolkien, J. R. R. The Return of the King. New York: Ballantine. 1965).

The story is fiction. However, just as Sam and Frodo are taken from the very brink of hopelessness and death into the protection and guardianship of the king, we too have been rescued. "[God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins" (Col. 1:13-14). Our circumstances were no less desperate than those of Sam and Frodo, and our salvation is no less miraculous and sure. Like a fairy tale or a great legend--it sure is!  Hope from despair, beauty from ashes, joy from sorrow--that's what our Lord is all about! Praise the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ who "called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light"! Amen