Isn’t It Ironic?

Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill debuted in 1995, just as the first wave of Millennials was crashing into America’s high schools. Her music became one of the soundtracks for these critical years — for many of us, not chosen, or even necessarily positive, but unavoidable. Her distinctive voice, catchy tunes, and conspicuous distress aired nonstop on the radio and at the mall.

Other than her nasty little ditty “You Oughta Know” (we won’t rehearse those bitter lyrics here), her biggest song was “Ironic.” And it’s proved to be her most enduring, still playing almost two decades later, having reached a kind of classic status. If you’ve been in public at all in the last twenty years, you’ve likely heard it.

A Song We Can All Sing

In “Ironic,” Morissette, once crowned “the queen of alt-rock angst,” plays the part, it seems, of the observant but powerless nihilist, noting how “life has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you think everything’s okay.” It’s not just a clever and humorous celebration of irony, but it subtly begs the deeper question as it personifies “life.” At worst, it’s just a playful lament of life’s endless torrent of troubles, but at best it’s suggestive of something personal behind it all. Someone.

It only takes a few lines to catch the gist of “Ironic.”

A traffic jam when you’re already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It’s meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife

We’ll leave the debate to the critics as to whether Morissette really understands what irony is in its strict sense, or whether what she’s really lamenting is bad timing. But however that goes, the song’s wild popularity, and sticking power, is owing not just to the mesmerizing tune and her riveting mezzo-soprano, but to the fact that we all can relate to what seem like profound ironies in our lives.

It’s like rain on your wedding day
It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid
It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take
Who would’ve thought it figures?

The Real Meaning of Irony

For those suppressing the innate knowledge of a Creator, noting the humor in the ironies is one small way of straining for some silver lining in the disappointments that come our way. But in the end, there’s no meaning to it for the nihilist. Making light of the irony, or the bad timing, is just one place to step your foot near the harrowing cliff of meaningless, right before sliding off.

But for the Christian, life’s ironies are pregnant with meaning. They aren’t just humorously coincidental and then ultimately empty. They are profoundly personal. They are pinpricks in the veil, little reminders that every moment and every detail are known and ordained by a personal God, who’s in and beneath all the minutia, working all things, even and especially life’s most tragic ironies, for our everlasting good (Romans 8:28).

Life’s ironies, whether advantageous or dreadful, make us freshly aware that our existence isn’t random, that everything coming our way has been lovingly sorted for our good, and that there is a greater goal, and deeper joy, than our comfort in the moment.

No Mere Coincidences

It’s not just the big details that are from the divine hand, but the small as well — “from him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36). Even the things which otherwise would seem most left to chance, like the roll of the dice: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” (Proverbs 16:33).

It is our God, personal and loving, the Father of Jesus, “who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses” (Psalm 135:7). He’s the one behind the ironies and everything else. When a tree falls in the woods, and no human’s there, he’s still onsite in all his sovereign sway. And “not one [sparrow] will fall to the ground apart from your Father” (Matthew 10:29). We conclude with John Piper, “If there is a God in heaven, there is no such thing as a mere coincidence, not even in the smallest affairs of life” (Desiring God, 37).

A Little Too Ironic?

For the Christian, the seeming ironies of life — whether they make us smirk, grimace, or weep — are not random, but the fingerprints of God, majestic mementos that the Absolute who rules the universe, down to every detail, is also Personal. And that he is loving toward us who are in his Son. Often we call them providences when we spot the fingerprints. It is the best of all worlds, when the one to whom we’re joined by faith is both sovereign and good.

Morissette hints at one point how suggestive life’s ironies can be. She asks, “A little too ironic?” and answers, “Yeah, I really do think.” Whether she would say more or not, the song contains no further clues. But at least it may make us wonder. Whether she will admit to it or not, she knows deep down that life’s many ironies are too evocative to be explained away every time with chance and coincidence.

Isn’t it providential, don’t you think?

Don’t Miss the Subtle, Ironic Poetry of God

When it comes to God, you must always keep your eyes open. If you don’t pay attention you’ll miss jaw-dropping glory.

Take the book of Esther, for example. If you’re not careful, you’ll only see a Hollywood-like story of a beautiful young orphan girl who against all odds becomes queen of Persia and, with a little help, recognizes her moment of destiny and courageously faces down a Persian Hitler.

And you would miss the real story.

The real story is not Esther’s inspiring courage or her beauty or Mordecai’s sage wisdom. This story is about what’s really going on behind the machinations of power.

Haman thinks he’s taking super-sized revenge on Mordecai for dissing him by orchestrating a kingdom-wide ethnic cleansing of the Jews. But all he really is is just the devil’s pawn.

Ahasuerus thinks he’s searching for a royal goddess-queen by culling “all the beautiful young virgins” (Esther 2:3) from the 127 provinces in his kingdom and hosting the world’s largest personal beauty contest. He has no clue that he’s God’s pawn to checkmate the devil. Oh, and, by the way, after all that work he “chooses” a Jewish orphan who lives down the street.

The book of Esther is the subtle, ironic living poetry of God where he chooses “what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27) and shouts his total sovereignty over cosmic powers (Ephesians 6:12), raging nations (Psalm 2:1), and the course of human lives without ever mentioning himself once. Nor the devil.

One thing I love about John Piper is that he doesn’t miss the poetry and he helps us see it too. In fact, it stirs the poet in him, which is why he wrote a narrative poem-story based on the book of Esther, now published by Crossway and beautifully illustrated by Glenn Harrington. It has two movements. In the first, 12 year-old Esther asks her uncle, Mordecai, how she came to be an orphan. In the second, 35 year-old Esther tells her own child how she came to be queen.

Often we are helped to see glory by looking at biblical truth through someone else’s lenses. We see different facets by looking from different perspectives. That’s the value of this book. It will help you see more than you might on your own.

And it will remind you to keep your eyes open as you watch God’s living poetry going on around you right now. The real story is often not what is most visible.