Frozen, Freedom and the Gospel

If you (like me) have a pre-teen daughter, you have perhaps seen the Disney movie Frozen. Almost certainly you have heard your daughter sing the movie's hit song, Let It Go (performed above by Idina Menzel).

Trevin Wax offered some great thoughts on the movie and the song in a post today at his Kingdom People blog. He points out:

Thousands of little girls across the country are singing this song – a manifesto of sorts, a call to cast off restraint, rebel against unrealistic expectations and instead be true to whatever you feel most deeply inside. What’s ironic is that the movie’s storyline goes against the message of this song. When the princess decides to “let it go,” she brings terrible evil into the world. The fallout from her actions is devastating. “No right, no wrong, no rules for me” is the sin that isolates the princess and freezes her kingdom.

He goes on...

 A popular idea in our culture is that there are only two ways to live:

1. Through authenticity, expressed in rebellion against cultural constraints
2. Through an ordered life, expressed in rule-keeping

Neither of these paths are the way to true fulfillment though.Wax concludes,

Christianity teaches explicitly what Frozen only hints at: salvation comes not through self-discovery or self-restraint, but through self-sacrifice.

All across the country, little girls are singing about self-discovery. Let’s make sure that after they see the film, they are given songs about self-sacrifice.

 Read the whole post here.

The Gospel According to Disney (Part 4)

When we went to the Magic Kingdom, the thing that my six-year-old daughter most looked forward to was the opportunity to meet the princesses and get their autographs. I suppose that meeting royalty is always special, but it’s even more special for little girls at Disney because it comes with the promise that you too can be royalty! I heard it proclaimed more than once while we were there: “Every little girl can be a princess.”

Cinderella even called my daughter a princess. If Cinderella says it is true, who am I to argue? After all, Cinderella is the expert on ordinary girls becoming princesses. There was nothing spectacular about her. She didn’t benefit from royal birth, but rather was born into the drudgery of a scullery maid. Ultimately she became a princess not because of anything she did, but because she was chosen by the prince to become his bride.

It is the same with us. We too, on our own, are nothing spectacular. Let’s be perfectly clear. There’s not a one of us about whom God is saying, “Wow! I sure am lucky to have him on my team!” As Paul mentions in Romans 3:10, “None is righteous, no, not one.” And the prophet reminds us in Isaiah 64:6 that whatever deeds we might account as ‘righteous,’ God considers to have all the purity of a polluted garment.

Even so, because those who trust in Christ are united with him and find their identity in him, we are considered by God to be sons of the king! Galatians 3:28 tells us that we have sonship (and with it, the privilege of inheritance) no matter what our status was before. All of the barriers that would have kept one from being a son of the king are now abolished. You can be a son whether you are Jew or Gentile, whether you are slave or free, whether you are male or female.

And as sons of the king, the inheritance that is ours is no ordinary inheritance. Rather it is “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time,” (1 Peter 1:4-5).

One chapter later (1 Peter 2:9), we find a wonderful affirmation of the church’s identity: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” This of course is nothing new. It is merely a reaffirmation God’s purpose for his people as it had always been. In Exodus 19:5-6, God proclaimed to the people of Israel, “you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

It has always been God’s intention to make his people royalty. And we look forward to that day when “the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,'” (Matthew 25:33).

Other Posts in This Series:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

The Gospel According to Disney (Part 3)

One of the most unmistakable things about a trip to Disney is the fact that the whole day is meant to be a joyful celebration. The park opens to singing and dancing by characters at the front gate. There are parades throughout the day and fireworks at night. Everything is pointed in a celebratory direction. It is one big party.

As Christians, celebratory joy ought to be one of the hallmarks of our lives. If we are truly those who, by God’s grace, have been brought from death to life so that sin might no longer have dominion over us (as we are promised in Romans 6:13-14), then we have more reason to celebrate than anyone!

Again, this is not to say that life is just a bowl of cherries. The Bible is clear that we will face affliction. The key in this matter is the attitude that Paul exhibits in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 where he writes, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

As we look to the unseen, we rejoice in what Christ has accomplished on our behalf, namely living the life of perfect holiness that is required of us, and dying the death that we should have died when we failed. We rejoice that he has risen from the dead, displaying his power over sin and death, vindicating his claims and guaranteeing his promises. We rejoice that he ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he physically lives today, making intercession on our behalf. And we rejoice that he will one day return, bringing with him the glorious restoration of all things.

In light of all of this, may the Apostle’s words in 1 Peter 1:8 be true of us all: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.”

Other Posts in This Series:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4

The Gospel According to Disney (Part 2)

One of the many things that's great about Disney is the fact that the good guy always wins. There have been many times that I've been watching a Disney movie with my children and they have become worried for the well-being of the main character. I always tell them not to worry, even if I've never seen the movie. "Remember," I say, "this is Disney. Everything is going to turn out okay." The glass slipper always fits Cinderella, Prince Charming never fails to shows up in the end, and every time Peter Pan defeats Captain Hook.

That's not to say that everything is always easy. For instance, in Disney stories there is often tragedy to deal with. To the dismay of moms everywhere, this most commonly seems to come in the fact that the main character's mother dies or is already dead (Bambi, Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo...), but it also comes in many other forms ranging from drudgery to (temporary) death.

Likewise, in real life, we face various difficulties and trials. Life is not always easy. Despite what purveyors of a prosperity gospel would tell you, the Bible never promises health and wealth to Christians. It does however promise difficulty:

• "Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you." (John 15:20)
  
• "Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'" (Matthew 16:24)
  
• "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." (James 1:2-3)

Throughout it all though, we do have this comfort:

"And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me...and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18,20)

That's the beauty of the Gospel. We do nothing to deserve it, but we are essentially on Jesus' team. We may be the benchwarmer who doesn't even get into the game, but when our star performer wins the championship, we too become champions. And just like with Disney, in the end, the Good Guy does indeed win!

Other Posts in This Series:
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4

The Gospel According to Disney (Part 1)

I recently was blessed with the opportunity to spend a day with my family at Walt Disney World. I have been there twice before and enjoyed it each time. This time though, it struck me more than ever how much of what Disney does resounds with echoes of the Gospel.

It’s not a completely foreign thought to me, I actually preached a sermon once on Ephesians 2:1-10 entitled “Fairy Tale Grace.” In it I recounted the tale of Snow White’s encounter with the wicked queen. This evil monarch, filled with envy and pride and murderous thoughts deceived Snow White into eating a deadly fruit. And having eaten, as she lay there dead, it did not matter what good works she had done, she was utterly incapable of doing anything to save herself. After all, she was dead.

But then along came her prince. He kissed her, and because his love for her was so great, she was brought back to life. Our story is not all that different from hers. We too once laid helpless, having been deceived by an evil monarch to eat of a deadly fruit. As we read in Ephesians 2:1-2, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air…”

Even so, Christ Jesus is our prince, who has loved us though there was not a thing we could offer him. He has revived us by his love though we truly could do nothing to deserve it, and he has taken us to be his bride, to reign with him forever.

J.R.R. Tolkien once made the point that the reason every culture has so many fairy tales (or as he called them, “fairy stories”) is because they are an echo of the one true story, that of a loving, redeeming God and his people who are the object of his affection. This is the reason Snow White’s story so resonates with us.

Over the next week or so I will be posting some other observations of how my trip to Disney World similarly reminded me of the Gospel. I hope you will be following along, and if you are, that you will be blessed by the beauty of the Gospel.

Other Posts in This Series:
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4