There's an angel in the story.

And a young woman.

Plus a little guy. One destined to save the world.

This hero resists temptation and is true to the end. He offers himself as a sacrifice to a good cause, defies death, and remains faithful until he is permitted to leave for a heavenly realm.

So, who is he? You might think "Jesus," the one who will "save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21).

But you'd be wrong. The little guy now appearing in movie theaters across the country is Frodo -- the heroic Hobbit in the first installment of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. The angel of this story is Gandalf, and the Virgin Mary is Galadrial.

If you haven't seen the movie, which opened just a few days ago, you've surely seen ads and previews. After sinking $270 million into the trilogy, director Peter Jackson wants to make sure everyone knows about this major movie event.

Not that there hasn't been buzz. Last January, the first Internet preview was downloaded by 1.7 million people in 24 hours. And fan sites spread the news when actress Liv Tyler began to speak "Elvish," the language of the elves, on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien."

People are rabid about the Rings.

But what's it all about? The Lord of the Rings' plot, according to Entertainment Weekly magazine, is a classic quest: To save Middle Earth, the little Hobbit Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring must take an all-powerful Ring back into the enemy territory where it was forged, and destroy it in the blazing fires there. But that's no easy task, because evil forces are in pursuit.

Picture this: The Fellowship undertakes a dangerous trek through the Mines of Moria. The group discovers a vast underground chamber strewn with the skeletal remains of dead warriors, who have been killed off by the evil Orcs. One Hobbit accidentally knocks a piece of armor into a deep well. The group waits, hushed, as the armor clangs violently to the bottom. Silence. Relief.

But then: Rumbling.

The Moria Orcs are coming! A pack of the troll-like monsters breaks through the barricaded door, followed by a massive cave troll. Arrows fly, swords flash, and Orcs spew black blood.

The Hobbits escape through the great halls of Moria, Orcs swarming down the columns like rats, and bumping up through the floors. As the creatures surround the Fellowship, you see the Orcs' pinched, witchlike faces. More potent devilry appears in the form of Balrog, a giant, fiery demon. The Fellowship is struggling on the crumbling stairs of their escape. The angelic Gandalf places himself between the group and the Balrog. A showdown is at hand.

Will the Fellowship escape? It will cost you $8.00 at the multiplex to find out! (Gillian Flynn, "Hobbit Forming," Entertainment Weekly, June 14, 2001, www.ew.com)

The Lord of the Rings looks like it is destined for box office success, and not just because of its high-tech special effects. The film will probably find fans through its story -- a classic quest involving a clear-cut battle between good and evil. In this age of ambiguity and relativism and other postmodern muck, we hunger for a bright, shining savior who will decisively defeat the powers of darkness.

Fortunately, we don't have to rely on Frodo, who is clearly a figment of our imagination. Instead, we have Jesus -- the Lord of the Kings.

He's the one who truly has the power to save.

Of course, Jesus doesn't look like much of a king when he first appears on the scene. No more so than forty-inch-tall Frodo looks like the towering savior of humankind.

But both Holy Scripture and Tolkien's trilogy remind us that appearances can be deceiving.

Let's imagine, for a moment, that we're watching a scene from a holiday blockbuster called Lord of the Kings. As the camera sweeps across the Middle Eastern countryside, the narrator intones, "Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way ..." (v. 18). There's no mention of a king, a queen, a royal family, or a highly anticipated and publicly celebrated pregnancy and birth.

Instead, we learn that a couple of nobodies named Mary and Joseph are engaged -- engaged, but not living together, in a binding arrangement that could be dissolved only by death or divorce. Their sense of personal peace and their plans for the future are suddenly shattered by the discovery that Mary is pregnant, a condition that points clearly to unfaithfulness and adultery.

Her husband Joseph is a righteous man, committed to playing by the rules and living by the law. And what does the ancient and honored law of Moses require in such cases? Capital punishment. It's laid out clearly in black and white: You are to stone the woman to death, and "purge the evil from your midst" (Deuteronomy 22:23-27).

Fortunately, by the time of Mary and Joseph, the law has been toned-down a bit by soft-hearted rabbis. But the penalties for such an offense are still severe and humiliating. (M. Eugene Boring, "The Gospel of Matthew," The New Interpreter's Bible [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 134-135)

So Joseph wrestles with all this, in a personal battle as intense as the fight between the Fellowship and the Orcs in the Mines of Moria. Coming through his own dark night of the soul, he decides to proceed in a more compassionate way. Instead of calling for a stoning or a public humiliation, Joseph decides to be merciful to Mary and divorce her quietly.

Remember this the next time you have a chance to crush someone who has hurt you. Joseph decides to put down the stone of sweet revenge, and show compassion.

His reward is a visit from an angel, who tells him, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" (vv. 20-21).

This is the beginning of the epic quest of Jesus the Messiah. He clearly has a long way to go, and has many battles to fight, before he will fulfill his divinely-appointed role as the son of King David, the heir of the prophet Moses, and the Messiah who will deliver the people of God.

First comes a conflict of kingdoms, one illustrated so clearly in the visit of the "three kings" and their divinely-directed decision not to divulge the location of Jesus to King Herod. This is followed by Herod's massacre of the children of Bethlehem, and the escape of Mary, Joseph and Jesus to Egypt. Upon Herod's death, Jesus and his family return, but then they are forced to become exiles in their own land, making a new home for themselves in what is called "Galilee of the Gentiles" (4:15).

It is there that the Lord of the Kings reaches maturity, and begins his world-changing work.

Of course, when Jesus is born, he doesn't appear to be destined to save humankind. He looks more like a refugee than a ruler; more like a common kid than a cosmic king. You simply can't predict the end of the story, any more than you can guess where the Hobbit Frodo will end up at the end of Fellowship of the Ring. Appearances can be deceiving.

It is only in retrospect that we can see that on the night of his birth, history is in the balance. If the three kings squeal to Herod, the adventure ends in a bloodbath. If Joseph and Mary fail to flee quickly to Egypt, their firstborn son dies in a slaughter.

But if they keep this baby safe, then the epic quest continues. He inaugurates the kingdom of God, dies as the king of the Jews, rises as a death-conquering Divine King, and returns to rule the world forever and ever. God has highly exalted him, and given him the name that is above every name, "so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:9-11).

Jesus is not just Lord. He's the Lord of every ruler, every power. He's Lord of the Kings.

But is he also the Lord of our lives?

This is the question we must ponder as we celebrate the coming of Jesus at Christmas. Is this baby of Bethlehem the one and only Lord -- not of Rings and not of Kings -- but of our everyday earthly existence?

Is Jesus our leader on an exciting and truly epic quest toward the kingdom of God? Is he our guide in day-to-day decisions -- tough choices such as Joseph's selection of compassion over punishment? Is he our ruler when we face truly tempting choices, and our protector when we feel vulnerable and scared? Is he the Lord who inspires our loyalty and ignites our enthusiasm, challenging us to fight the good fight of faith and spread the good news of his grace and love?

Is he still our infant King, one who asks for our help? Will we protect and preserve his place in the world, just as Mary and Joseph worked to save him from danger and death?

Is he our leader, our guide, our ruler, our Lord and our King? Is he the one we look to when we need some rock-solid assurance that God is truly with us?

If so, feel free to enjoy Frodo and Gandalf and Galadrial, wonderful fantasy characters brought to life in the Lord of the Rings.

When you walk out of the theater and into the world, you'll know your true Lord and true King: Jesus the Messiah. Amen.