Thoughts from a Narrator

This weekend, I had the privilege to be part of the Sand Springs Community Theatre production of Into the Woods, which is kind of a mash-up of several fairy tales. In this production I play the Narrator, who kind of guides the play along. As such, I thought I would offer this fairy tale of my own.

Many cultures use fairy tales to teach lessons and morals to children. Soren Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher of the 19th century, once wrote his own version of a fairy tale to help explain the good news of God’s love. He said, There once “was a king who loved a humble maiden. The king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared to breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all opponents. And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden.

“How could he declare his love for her? In an odd sort of way, his very kingliness tied his hands. If he brought her to his palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist; no one dared resist him. But would she love him? She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind. Would she be happy at his side? How could he know?

“If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a cringing subject. He wanted a lover, an equal. He wanted her to forget that he was a king and she a humble maiden and to let shared love cross over the gulf between them. For it is only in love that the unequal can be made equal,” concluded Kierkegaard.

“And so the king, convinced that he could not elevate the maiden without crushing her freedom, resolved to descend. He clothed himself as a beggar and approached her cottage incognito, with a worn cloak fluttering loosely about him. It was no mere disguise he took on, but a new identity. For, you see, he renounced the throne to win her hand.”¹

C. S. Lewis once famously wrote, “The heart of Christianity is a myth (you could also say fairy tale) which is also a fact.”² His point is that the power of these stories, of this story, is not in its fiction, but in the wonderful fact that it’s all true. God loves us just like we are. Jesus came and died for your sins, and mine, to bring us back to our loving Heavenly Father. That is the message we have the great privilege to share with the world.

1.      A paraphrase of Soren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, pp. 31-43, by Philip Yancey in his book Disappointment with God, pp. 103-104.

2.      C. S. Lewis. God in the Dock, “Myth Became Fact.” Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI:1970.  p. 66.