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In 1915, Dorothy Sayers became one of the first women ever to graduate from prestigious Oxford University in England.
Actually, she wasn’t given a degree. That was a privilege granted only to men.
Sayers finally received her sheepskin retroactively in 1920, when Oxford concluded that women might be worthy of academic accolades after all. An acclaimed poet, playwright, essayist, and translator, she spent the rest of her life giving her alma mater good reasons to celebrate that decision.
Sayers was tall. She was not regarded as classically beautiful. She wrote detective novels in her spare time.
She’s best known for two things. One was her association with fellow Oxford writers C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. The other was a series of short stories and eleven full-length novels that featured a character named Lord Peter Wimsey, the prototypical British gentleman detective.
In Sayers’ mind, Lord Peter wasn’t just a pale figure of fantasy. He was a living, breathing human being: a man of average height, beaked nose, intellectual brilliance, and “a vaguely foolish face.”
Novel by novel, the clever and resourceful Lord Peter makes his way through life, solving murders and mysteries left and right.
But there’s also something inherently sad about his life. He’s single. He’s all alone.
So Sayers decides to bring into his world a female character named Harriet Vane. Although Peter and Harriet don’t exactly hit it off at first, they ultimately fall in love and get married. Then they solve murder mysteries together.
What do we know about Harriet? She’s tall. She’s not regarded as classically beautiful. She attends Oxford. In her spare time she writes detective novels.
Does this seem vaguely familiar?
Scholars have long speculated that Sayers used herself as the model for Harriet Vane. She was the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey. She had invented his world from scratch. As Lord Peter’s story continued to unfold, she saw his deep needs and felt his yearning and loneliness.
So she rescued him.
She wrote herself into the story in order to become his friend, ally, and lover.
Does that sound crazy, or what?
But when you think about it, that’s exactly what God did.
God created you and set your story into motion. God knows in infinite detail exactly what it’s like to be you – to struggle with your limitations, to face your fears, to ride the roller coaster of your good days and not-so-good days, to wonder about your tomorrows.
Christians believe that in the person of Jesus, God wrote himself into all of our stories. That’s what Christmas is all about.
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The Greek word translated “dwelt” is literally “pitched-tent.” Imagine Jesus coming to your encampment and putting up his tent right in the middle of your life.
He’s written himself into the middle of your neighborhood. Your work. Your hobbies. Your family.
Which means you now have a friend and an ally – someone who truly loves you – who is committed to coming alongside you and helping you solve whatever mysteries you’ll be facing this week.
Including what is no doubt the most interesting mystery of all: who you are and who you are still becoming as an ongoing character is God’s unfolding Story of the world.
