The first time I saw the movie Tangled was at the theater with my daughter. I loved every minute of it. However, as I was sitting there in the dark, staring at the big screen, I was certain that I was watching a very different movie than my fellow theater goers. In my personal life, I had been going through a heart revolution. God had been teaching me about grace; about what He really accomplished at the cross. I was getting free from some wrong beliefs that had held me hostage for many years. One by one, He would cut the strings that seemed to entangle me and I was finally in a place where I felt safe calling God my Father.
I grew up in the church. My father was a minister (an excellent one at that and I would later realize that he had a better grasp on grace than I realized). I believe that both of my parents had a gift of compassion that I could clearly see in my own life. I am so very thankful for that. However, I had also latched on to many beliefs that were prevalent in our denomination: the wrath and judgement of God on people, living according to the ten commandments (the law), and the fear of being left behind, just to name a few. I basically viewed the Father as a judge who was pointing His ginormous finger at me from the clouds, eagerly awaiting His chance to zap me because I just couldn’t stop screwing up. And, of course, Jesus was interceding on my behalf, begging the Father to give me a little more time and to not kill me.
Okay, so I can hear some of your brains going crazy right now, trying to decide whether I’m a heretic or just a loon. That’s totally cool. I’m pretty secure in my identity now and it’s because of the truth that Holy Spirit shared with my heart about how the Father sees me. If you’ll stick with me, I’ll show you what I mean by using the movie, ‘Tangled’, as a picture of the gospel.
In ‘Tangled’, we meet a girl named Rapunzel. She is full of life, is a great friend, and even has a killer voice (I already like her). There’s just one tiny problem. She’s stuck. She has a great view of the world around her. She has dreams of experiencing the freedom that is out there. But she is confined, limited, restricted, stuck. And why is that? Because she’s been lied to. Mother Gothel has spun a tale of fear to keep her trapped, unable to recognize who she really is. (Are you starting to see where I’m going with this?) Her whole life she’s been locked away in the tower, held back by fear, and she was a princess all the while. Question. How do you think she would have lived had she known who she truly was?
So, along comes the dashing Flynn Rider, who helps her to see a way out. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when they are in the forest after she’s made her escape and she is having an argument with herself over her choice. She hides her face in her hands one moment, declaring, “I am a despicable human being”, and swings from the tree by her hair the next, screaming, “Best day ever!” As I sat in the theater that day surrounded by little faces, I realized that I was witnessing the struggle between living under the law and living under grace.
I had been where Rapunzel was, scared to death to let go of the law as my parent for fear that the bottom was going to drop out at any moment and I was going to find out that the good news was not as good as I thought. My first mentor in grace, Gina, who was a saint when it came to patience, poured into me for an entire year before I finally let go and put all my eggs in God’s grace basket. I kept holding on to the law as a “just in case”; just in case He actually turned out to be the big finger and not the Good Good Father I was coming to know Him as.
So, here I am witnessing the struggle for freedom in high definition and I am blown away by the good news of the gospel. Even now, as I write this, thinking back on the beauty of that truth, I am in tears. See, Rapunzel had someone who was searching for her; who knew her true identity and who longed for her to see it for herself. Every year, the royal family along with all the people in the kingdom would light lanterns and float them up into the sky in the hopes that the princess would see it and find her way home. Matthew 5:14 says, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden." This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
So, Rapunzel’s dream comes true. She had always seen the "lights" from a distance and now she saw them close up. She actually experienced the kingdom and still ended up back with Mother Gothel (I've sooo been there). But watch what happens when her eyes are opened to what was inside her all along! She sees her true identity! She realizes that she has a family! She belongs! She is loved! She has power! She is royalty!
My absolute favorite scene in the movie that makes me bawl like a baby to this day is when the soldier bursts into the room to give the king and queen the good news that their daughter had been found. Seeing their faces, seeing them run to her, seeing them wrap her in their arms. It reminds me a story in the Bible of a father running to his son who had been lost but was found; who was ‘dead’ but was ‘alive’ again. In case you haven’t caught on, this is OUR story.
When the king and queen looked at Rapunzel, what did they see? They saw themselves. Genesis 1:27 says that we were made in the image of God. See, we’ve been lied to by religion. We’ve been told that we have to fit in this box and adhere to all the rules of said box in order to have value to God. One by one, the strings of the law have wrapped around us and maybe we’ve even felt like they kept us safe. But along comes Grace. And Grace reveals to us that we’ve been tangled in lies and that we’ve been royalty all along. Here’s the difference between having the law parent us versus having grace parent us. The law says you must do x,y,z in order to become a child of God. Grace says you are a child of God, and x,y,z follows that revelation. Woah! The freedom! And, yeah, it’s scary letting grace cut those strings. We feel like we’ll fall. But the truth is, it frees us to be who we always were to begin with. And, sure, we probably will fall at some point but grace is there to catch our fall and point us back to truth.
I believe that Grace is a person. His name is Jesus. Jesus came, lived in an earth suit, fulfilled the law, carried the weight of sin on the cross, and broke the power of sin (noun, not verb) when He was raised from the dead. Why did He do that? So that the Father could have someone to beat up instead of taking all His anger out on you? If I killed one of my children in order to stop myself from killing the others you would send my butt straight to jail (and rightly so). Are we better parents than God? Hmmm, I’m going to venture a big nope. People killed Jesus. The Father judged sin. It has been dealt with. It is finished.
Ephesians 2:4-9 says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Jesus came to reveal the Father and to restore us to His heart. You have been royalty all along. Grace has come to point you to that truth and to give you the power to live like it.
I would encourage you to ask Holy Spirit to reveal any strings that have been holding you down. What has been keeping you tangled? Matthew 7:7 says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Ask God to show you the truth about that string and the truth about who you are in Him. Listen, there is a difference between doing something good (ie. going to church, reading your Bible, singing a worship song) because that’s what you’re “supposed to do as a Christian”, and having those good things flow out of a revelation of who you are in Jesus. It’s the age old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. I can assure you that God said He loved you and chose you before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1:4) His love most definitely came first. (John 3:16-17)
Hopefully, the next time you watch ‘Tangled’ you will be reminded that you are loved. You are valuable. You are royalty.
