Fairy tales move us in a way that realistic fiction cannot. Fairy tales speak to several deep human longings that we are almost ashamed to admit and that we can never discard. We long to long to survey the depths of time and space. We long to get outside of time altogether and escape death. We long to hold communion with other living things like angels. We long to find a love that perfectly heals and from which we can never part. We long to triumph over evil finally and totally. When you are in the middle of a great fairy tale, the fairy tale lets you live, even briefly, with the dream that love without parting, escape from death, triumph over evil are real and realisable. That's why the stories stir us so deeply and why we will go on reading and writing them no matter what the critics say.
But the gospel's message is that through Jesus Christ, every single one of these things that the fairy tales talk about is true and will come to pass. We will hang out with angels. We will have loves from which we'll never we parted. We will see absolute triumph over evil. There is a beauty who will kiss you in all your beastliness and transform you. There is a prince who will save us forever...
Someday there will be a new heaven and a new earth, that everything sad will become untrue and all of our deepest human longings will come to pass. In the knowledge of that, we can go forth into the world to serve as those who love our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, out of thankfulness.
Lifted from a Tim Keller sermon.
See also:
Between Two Worlds Blog
