The Scouring of the Shire

I just finished rereading the Lord of the Rings for the six or seventh time in my life, and every time I read it, the more I get out of it. In the next couple of posts, I'll discuss some parts of the book, mainly at the end, that I really like. After the jump, I'll discuss a scene from the hobbits' return journey.

I was really struck by one exchange the hobbits have with the inn-keeper in Bree as they're on their way home. There has been trouble in the North around Bree because the Rangers, who lived in the wild and kept evil at bay, had gone down south to fight against Sauron. The Breelanders know nothing about this - all they know is that all of a sudden the world has gotten a lot more dangerous. However, the hobbits and Gandalf bring good news to the innkeeper, Barliman Butterbur.

   'But better times are coming. Maybe, better than any you remember. The Rangers have returned. We came back with them. And there is a king again, Barliman. He will soon be turning his mind this way.

   Then the Greenway will be opened again, and his messengers will come north, and there will be comings and goings, and the evil things will be driven out of the waste-lands. Indeed the waste in time will be waste no longer, and there will be people and fields where once there was wilderness.'

   Mr. Butterbur shook his head. 'If there's a few decent respectable folk on the roads, that won't do no harm,' he said. 'But we don't want no outsiders at Bree, nor near Bree at all. We want to be let alone. I don't want a whole crowd o' strangers camping here and settling there and tearing up the wild country.'

   'You will be let alone, Barliman,' said Gandalf. 'There is room enough for realms between Isen and Greyflood, or along the shore-lands south of the Brandywine, without any one living within many days' ride of Bree. And many folk used to dwell away north, a hundred miles or more from here, at the far end of the Greenway; on the North Downs or by Lake Evendim.'

   'Up away by Deadmen's Dike?' said Butterbur, looking even more dubious. 'That's haunted land, they say. None but a robber would go there.'

   'The Rangers go there,' said Gandalf. 'Deadmen's Dike, you say. So it has been called for long years; but its right name, Barliman, is Fornost Erain, Norbury of the Kings. And the King will come there again one day; and then you'll have some fair folk riding through.'

   'Well, that sounds more hopeful, I'll allow,' said Butterbur. 'And it will be good for business, no doubt. So long as he lets Bree alone.'

   'He will,' said Gandalf. 'He knows it and loves it.'

   'Does he now?' said Butterbur looking puzzled. 'Though I'm sure I don't know why he should, sitting in his big chair up in his great castle, hundreds of miles away. And drinking wine out of a golden cup, I shouldn't wonder. What's The Pony to him, or mugs o' beer? Not but what my beer's good, Gandalf. It's been uncommon good, since you came in the autumn of last year and put a good word on it. And that's been a comfort in trouble, I will say.'

   'Ah!' said Sam. 'But he says your beer is always good.'

   'He says?'

   'Of course he does. He's Strider. The chief of the Rangers. Haven't you got that into your head yet?'

   It went in at last, and Butterbur's face was a study in wonder. The eyes  in his broad face grew round, and his mouth opened wide, and he gasped. 'Strider!' he exclaimed when he had got back his breath. 'Him with a crown and all and a golden cup! Well, what are we coming to?'

   'Better times, for Bree at any rate,' said Gandalf.

I think is such an amazing conversation. You can just see Gandalf and the hobbits laughing to themselves because Barliman was the one who had warned them about Aragorn when they had first met him. At that point Aragorn, aka Strider, had a reputation as a shady character, and so it's just hilarious waiting for Barliman's reaction when he finally learns that Strider is the king. But it's interesting to note what Barliman's reaction is to learning there is a king. He doesn't immediately think that all will be set right. No, he just wants to be left alone. And how many people react that when when they think about God? How many people think that even if there is a God, he's far too lofty to be concerned with us? As long as he just leaves us alone and doesn't bother us with too many earthquakes and hurricanes and other natural disasters, then we can go ahead and live our lives happily.

But that's not what our God is like. Unlike the high and lofty king Barliman was envisioning, the king had not only been to Bree, but he had walked in Bree as one of them. He had tasted the beer of the Prancing Pony just as any other patron of the inn. He not only is concerned with Bree, but as Gandalf says, he knows it and he loves it. This is the gospel message: that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son. That is the miracle of Advent, which we will be celebrating over the next month; Jesus was born into our world and walked among us and came to know us. Even now, when He is sitting at the right hand of God, He knows us intimately and loves us. Praise God!