Insights from Frodo and Gandalf...

I’ve recently begun reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings.  I don’t know why it has taken me so long to read these three books.  In high school, I read The Hobbit, a tale that functions as a prequel describing how the Ring ends up in the unlikely hands of the hobbits of the Shire.  The Hobbit gives a considerable amount of it’s time to describing how Bilbo Baggins acquires the Ring from Gollum.  Gollum, we find out, once was a Hobbit himself.  His discovery of the Ring led him to murder his friend to possess this precious Ring.  The Ring does a number on Gollum, transforming him from a jolly Hobbit to a slimy creature that eats raw fish and can’t stand the light. 

The Ring, in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, functions as a symbol and metaphor for the nature of evil – and most likely sin.  It bears the uncanny ability to transform its holder into an individual concerned only with the Ring and the power it brings.  The longer an individual has the Ring, the more they come under the domination of its power.  As the Ring functions as a metaphor for the nature of evil and sin, Gollum displays for us what the Ring can do to a person.  His character is a tragic one, dominated by desire for the Ring causing him to do all manner of evil.  Gollum is, if there ever was one, a sinner very far gone. 

  

Not long into the book as we are getting the back story on the Ring and Middle Earth, we encounter an exchange between Frodo (our hero and holder of the Ring) and Gandalf (a kind, yet powerful wizard who will help Frodo in his journey to destroy the Ring).  Gandalf has just filled in Frodo on the true story behind Bilbo’s acquisition of the Ring and the true evil nature of the Ring.  Gollum has been apprehended and now sits in custody, guarded by Elves.  Here’s the conversation:    

‘But this is terrible!’ cried Frodo.  ‘Far worse than the worse than I imagined from your hints and warnings.  O Gandalf, best of friends, what am I to do?  For now I am really afraid.  What am I to do?  What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature when he had the chance!’

‘Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand.  Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need.  And he has been well rewarded, Frodo.  But sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so.  With Pity.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Frodo.  ‘But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.’

‘You have not seen him,’ Gandalf broke in. 

‘No, and I don’t want to,’ said Frodo.  ‘I can’t understand you.  You mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds?  Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy.  He deserves death.’

 ‘Deserve it!  I daresay he does.  Many that live deserve death.  And some that die deserve life.  Can you give it to them?  Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment.  For even the very wise cannot see all ends.  I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it.’ – The Fellowship of the Ring, p. 58

Simply put, what’s great about this exchange is the tension between the power of evil in a person’s life (if a Hobbit is a person) and the power of good to finally overcome that evil.  Frodo seems to believe that there is no coming back from the evil Gollum has done.  Gandalf, on the other hand, sees a glimmer of hope.  I would venture to guess that most of us, when we hear news on the radio or TV about the heinous act of a criminal, are all too prone to believe that the evil in that person has completely consumed them.  We believe that these criminals are so far gone that nothing or no one can save them.  For criminals, we’ve lost hope.   

But that’s not where I want to live.  Where I want to live is in the unresolved tension of hope.  Maybe that criminal will never be free from the evil that has captivated them.  But maybe the grace and love of God will fill them – dispelling all darkness, hatred, violence, and evil.  Maybe is a big place, but it’s a place filled with hope that our God, the very same God who created and sustains the world, is master over the very strongest of evil.  For me, this land of maybe, this unresolved tension found in hope, has led me to believe that anytime we judge people in an ultimate kind of way, we deny that God’s power is greater than sin and evil.  What I am not saying is that there should be no penalty for wrongs done.  What I am saying is that any punishment, any judgment, should always have its eye toward the unlimited power of God’s love, grace, and mercy to root out sin and evil from even the most heinous of persons.  There is always hope.