WHEN IT COMES to movies and novels, we tend to like our happy endings. The plot may twist and turn precariously. There can be numerous challenges and obstacles for the main characters to overcome, sometimes against what seem to be insurmountable odds. But somehow, we expect them to succeed in the end, and we would be disappointed if they didn’t.

Take the so-called romantic comedies or rom-coms for short. The most basic plot goes like this: the lovers meet, then are separated by a series of unfortunate circumstances or misunderstandings. But by the end of the movie, they must find each other again and have their happy ending.

Contrast that with a tragic story like Romeo and Juliet. To avoid an arranged marriage to someone she doesn’t love, Juliet drinks a potion that makes her appear dead. Romeo misunderstands and poisons himself, kissing what he thinks is Juliet’s corpse before he dies. Juliet wakes up, finds Romeo dead, then commits suicide with Romeo’s dagger. Nobody stops them; nobody swoops in to save them. It’s neither a dream nor a parallel universe. They don’t magically wake up. The lovers die and stay dead.

That’s the difference between a tragedy and a comedy. In a tragedy, things go from bad to worse and stay that way. In a comedy, things may start that way, but at some point there’s a reversal of fortune: things get better, what’s lost is found, and the heroes and heroines get their happy ending. That plot line, and not the humor of the script, is what originally distinguished a comedy from a tragedy.

So much of what we read in the book of Micah is bad news. The people have sinned greatly. They’ve become greedy and idolatrous, and there’s no justice in the land. They ignore or persecute God’s prophets, yet still think of themselves as God’s people, protected by God’s covenant promises. No more, God says through Micah. Judgment has come, the verdict is guilty, and the sentence is destruction and exile. It’s a tragic tale.

Except that there will be a reversal of fortune.

IN THE NORTH, Assyria has destroyed Samaria and taken captives into exile. Similarly, Babylon is coming for the southern kingdom of Judah. Jerusalem will be destroyed and the people deported. But exile is not the end of the story. After speaking of his own hope for vindication, Micah gives voice to the city of Jerusalem herself. She knows she must suffer for her sin. But she still hopes in a future reversal of fortune:

Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
    Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,
    the LORD will be my light.
Because I have sinned against him,
    I will bear the LORD’s wrath,
until he pleads my case
    and upholds my cause.
He will bring me out into the light;
    I will see his righteousness. (Micah 7:8-9, NIV)

Do you hear the reversals? “Though I have fallen, I will rise,” Jerusalem declares. It’s as if she’s saying, against the taunts of her enemies, “I may be down, but you’d better not kick me.” She’s not going to stay down; think back to the stunning predictions of her restoration in chapter 4. Moreover, she says, “though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light” and “bring me out into the light.”

But even better is the renewal of God’s favor, the reversal of his stance toward Judah. Through Micah, God came as judge and jury. When Jerusalem says, “Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD’s wrath,” she is accepting God’s judgment as just. But she also anticipates the day in which God will turn from prosecution to defense, pleading Jerusalem’s case. What the New International Version translates as God upholding Jerusalem’s cause literally means to “execute justice” on her behalf. Earlier in the letter, justice entailed punishing the people for being unfaithful to the covenant. Here, it means the restoration of God’s covenant commitment.

That’s why she warns her enemies not to gloat over her downfall. When God at last demonstrates his righteousness by taking up her defense, the tables will be turned:

Then my enemy will see it
    and will be covered with shame,
she who said to me,
    “Where is the LORD your God?”
My eyes will see her downfall;
    even now she will be trampled underfoot
    like mire in the streets. (vs. 10)

It’s not merely that Jerusalem’s enemies have mocked her; rather, they’ve mocked God, taking Jerusalem’s failure as the impotence or indifference of her God. But watch out, she insists. I may have fallen for now. I am the one to bear God’s wrath and be covered with shame. But one day, when God brings justice on my behalf, it’s my enemies who will fall and be ashamed instead.

In accepting God’s judgment for her sin, she has begun to do as instructed in Micah 6:8 — she is walking humbly with her God. However long she has to wait, she is confident in God’s justice and righteousness, and knows that tragedy will not be the last word.