"Yes, I do," Beauty answered in all honesty. "But," she added quickly, "I'm sure you have a very kind heart."
So runs the fanciful yet profound tale of "Beauty and the Beast."
The Beast is often surly and unruly. Beauty is gentle and kind. The Beast is alone and hurt. Beauty reaches out and soothes. The Beast is shrouded in darkness and mystery. Beauty brings light and clarity. The Beast is hideous and unbearable to look at. Beauty gives her very self to him, hardly realizing that this very act would make him beautiful too.
Does this sound familiar?
According to G.K. Chesterton, some very valuable lessons can be learned from fairytales. From this particular tale, he announced that he had learned that one must love a thing before it becomes lovable.
Does this sound familiar?
How about this verse: "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"? (Rom. 5:8)
God didn't wait until we were lovable to give His Son to us. He didn't wait for us to come out of our darkness before cloaking Himself in flesh and climbing into the pit after us. He didn't wait until we were handsome princes before offering us His Beauty.
C.S. Lewis said, "To love at all is to be vulnerable." Love isn't about making some safe investment. It's about throwing off all defensive armor and stepping out, risking the deepest hurts imaginable. Lewis added, "We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the suffering inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it."
However, God would never ask us to do something that He wasn't willing to do Himself. A thousand times. As JJ Heller put it:
I ran a thousand miles for you,
Knowing you would break my heart,
But I would do it all again
Because I couldn't stand to be apart.
Jesus, the very Son of God, personified Love. He chose the path of vulnerability. About two thousand years ago, He handed over His immortality and decided to confine Himself to a comparatively frail human body. The Creator of the universe went from using the planets to shine His fingernails to being cooped up in a dark and tiny womb. Talk about a demotion. Talk about vulnerability. Talk about Love.
And from the very beginning, He knew that we were going to break His heart. Studies show that this was the real cause of His death. His Cross was only a part of it.
Yet, Jesus, "for the joy that was set before him endured the cross" (Heb. 12:2). Our Beauty ignored the dark and spooky castle, the homesickness, the pain, our gruffness, and our ugliness. He may have "trembled from head to foot" at the sin He saw masking our countenance, but He saw our hearts. He saw something worth redeeming. And so, stretching across the great chasm between Heaven and Earth, He reached down and did the unthinkable:
He pulled us out.
And, for the first time, I see that this is what Christmas is really all about. We know of Santa Claus. We know of gifts. If we're lucky, we know of Mary and Joseph. And, if we're luckier still, we know of Jesus, the Greatest Gift.
But how often do we think of the very actions involved in the giving of that Gift? Surely if our seemingly penniless aunt handed us the car keys to a Ferrari, we would be very interested in knowing what it cost her. Why is it, then, that when our rich Heavenly Father demonstrates the extreme act of vulnerable love and goes through misery in order to pull us out of ours, we blow it off as if it's a given?
I say "we." I should probably say "I."
Honestly, the immensity of this costly Gift is starting to seep into me in a whole new way. I don't want to blow off this Gift. I want to remember the Hand behind it. I want to let this Hand transform me from my own beastliness. I want to take a hold of it and kiss it. Finally, when I can't hold onto it any longer, when I see His Blood dripping from my limp fingers and I recall that my sin carved the scars in His flesh, I want to just let Him hold me. I want to rest in that firm grip.
For, if the first Christmas was the day that God reached down to pull us out, then I believe that every other Christmas should serve as a reminder that He is still holding on.
I wrote a song to memorialize some of these thoughts. I call it, "Still Holding On."
Unlovable
That's what he is
Unlovable Beast
Brokenness his
But there is Hope
Flickering sure
Beauty is at the door.
Reaching out
In his loneliness
Bringing light
To his darkness
Giving beauty
To his ugliness
Pulling him out
And still holding on.
Beautiful
That's what she is
Beautiful
Her love is his
Far from her home
Her sacrifice
But she thought he was worth the price.
Reaching out
In his loneliness
Bringing light
To his darkness
Giving beauty
To his ugliness
Pulled him out
And still holding on.
Unlovable
That's what we are
Unlovable
But under a star
God stretched His hand
Through His only Son
Doing what had not been done.
Reaching out
In our loneliness
Bringing light
To our darkness
Giving beauty
To our ugliness
Pulling us out
And still holding on
Vulnerable
That's what Love is
Vulnerable
The choice was His
Taking on flesh
Knowing we'd break His heart
He knew it from the start.
Beautiful
That's what He is
Beautiful Christ
And we are His
Leaving His home
Loving with all His might
Saving us from our dark plight.
Reaching out
In our loneliness
Bringing light
To our darkness
Giving beauty
To our ugliness
Pulled us out
And still holding on
Yes, He pulled us out
And He's still holding on.
Frankly, I find it easy to get so caught up in the awe and solemnity of the whole thing that I forget one very important factor: JOY!!!
Jesus would not want us to mourn His suffering. He would want us to celebrate the results! "He came, He saw, He conquered!" He came to earth as a selfless, delicate baby. He saw our pain and depravity. He transformed. He healed. He has pulled us out!!!
How can we not rejoice when we hear news like that?
'Tis true, if my readers are like me, we are all surrounded by pain and suffering. My heart aches over the broken families of people who are close to me, and feelings of joy do not erupt effortlessly to the surface. Nevertheless, this joy is for them too! Because if we can rest that God has a hold of our limp hand, we can rest assured that He has a hold of theirs too.
If the first Christmas was the time that God reached down to pull us out, then every other Christmas is the time to celebrate the fact that He is still holding on. To all of us.
We can count it all joy.
Merry Christmas!
