Perhaps you’ve heard of the most recent installment of the Star Wars saga. I have seen The Last Jedi three times now, and it gets better each time.

I was speechless after the first viewing, overwhelmed by a flurry of excitement, joy, and disappointment. After two more viewings, I collected my thoughts and--aside from a few minor qualms--I have grown to love the film.

The movie gets better the more you watch it.

That’s an interesting truth about excellent art: the more time you spend with a great painting, the more detail you notice. The more times you read a classic work of literature, the more you understand why it’s considered a classic work of literature.

Have you ever been obsessed with a song? So obsessed that you listen to it on repeat for hours on end? I always did this as a kid. After one middle school breakup, I listened to Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls on a loop for an entire weekend. I thought I would never get sick of it, until of course I did.

Eventually, we want to move on to another painting. We are ready to read a different story. We have to play the next song because the one we’ve been listening to has finally been wrung dry. Chewing gum explodes with flavor when you first pop it in your mouth, but after a while it gets stale, flat, then flavorless. Similarly, art, even great art, does this.

No matter how fervent our search for beauty, aesthetics, and pleasure, art loses its flavor over time. Perhaps you can revisit a song or book every now and then for some nostalgic pleasure that never seems to fade, but even the most magnificent art ever created has a finite quality about it. You may think you wouldn't grow tired of staring at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for a million years, and you might be right. But my guess is, after a million and one years, you’d have thoroughly consumed the piece and be thirsty for something else.

Perhaps this explains the everchanging waves of new artistic movements. What was avant-garde 50 years ago might be an old-news cliche today. This is not to say that we should not appreciate classic works or ‘old’ art--indeed, discovering older art can temporarily satisfy our desire for something new, but our perpetual thirst for something fresh is undeniable.

Artists can only pump so much creative energy into a piece. Our minds are capped by finitude, and thus our expressive capacity. Brilliant minds can layer loads of complexity and aesthetic richness into their work for their audience to savor, but only so many loads. Human art is limited because its authors labor in a studio of finitude.

I have observed these aesthetic limitations in every song, sonnet, cinema, and story I have ever encountered, except for one.

The greatest story ever told is found in the ancient pages of the Holy Bible, the story of the gospel--that the Creator of the universe poured out His righteous wrath on His innocent son so that the rebellious creations deserving the punishment could be reconciled as children of God in His eternal kingdom of unimaginable joy.

Of course, many people don’t enjoy this story. The divisive feature of this story is its claim of historical reality rather than mere fairy tale. The Bible is certainly a work of art, but it isn't only that. If this were just another mythical tale, I’ve no doubt that it would be universally praised for its unmatched poetic imagery, divinely dramatic plot, endlessly rich layers of character complexity, and the lavish demonstration of the protagonist’s heroic love; it would be the capstone of the literary canon, an absolute requirement for syllabi in every school. But it’s no fairy tale, and that is polarizing. The story causes some to worship, and others to scoff, some to repent, and others to laugh. It’s no surprise that a story that demands you forfeit control of your life and relinquish your most primal desires is unpopular among humans. Indeed, a story that demands something from us is emphatically not what we’re looking for when we want to veg out on Netflix.

Another thing that makes the gospel unique is that when the story does seem to get stale or boring, it’s not evidence that the gospel is finite in the way of other art, but an indication of a deficiency in us, the viewer. Our tendency to search for joy apart from God is central to the very plot of the story in question, as we see in Isaiah 53:6: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on [Jesus] the iniquity of us all.” It is because we don’t seek satisfaction in God that Christ died for us; we especially need the story when we don’t appreciate the story. It is because we occasionally get sick of the story that the story had to be told in the first place.

The story of Jesus, the divine work of art to end all other works of art, is infinitely enjoyable because the author of the story is infinite in creativity, wisdom, and awe. The infinite quality of the art is a reflection of the endlessly glorious character of its author. Every great story you've ever heard is a dim reboot, a superficial copycat, a foggy and jagged reflection of the true story of the gospel (When I visited the Louvre, I snapped a picture of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa on my phone; calling my picture of his painting a masterpiece is as silly as calling Da Vinci’s painting a masterpiece compared to the original work of the Artist that knit the actual woman together in her mother’s womb). Even the great art that existed before Jesus’ arrival on earth some 2,000 years ago was, in some way, only the faint foreshadow of God’s promised provision from eternity past.

I’ve had a relationship with Christ for a handful of years, but there have been several moments when I’ve said, “Aha! I finally understand the story!” Only to flip a few more pages and discover an even deeper appreciation for and pleasure in the gospel. I’m sure that years from now I’ll realize I only sipped at the surface of the deep pool of His love. Like the folks from the 1970’s who couldn't believe the cutting edge special effects of Star Wars, I’m sure I haven't seen anything quite yet.

The story gets richer the more you engage it. The gospel is bubble gum that gets juicer as you chew, a song that gets sweeter the longer you listen, a film that grows more epic as you rewatch, a photograph that glows brighter the longer you stare, a sunrise more golden each morning.