‘Sleeping Beauty‘ is another classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, a sleeping enchantment and a handsome prince. In this story, the celebrations at the birth of a princess are ruined when an evil fairy curses her, saying that when she pricks her finger on a spindle on her sixteenth birthday, she will die. A good fairy is able to commute this sentence to sleep, from which she can only be awakened by the kiss of a prince. Despite all attempts to rid the kingdom of any spindle on which the princess could prick her finger, she does indeed do this and falls into a sleep from which she is finally awakened by the kiss of a prince, whom she subsequently marries and they ‘live happily ever after.’
Fairytales are not for the faint-hearted; they contain their fair share of darkness, evil and dramatic tension. In this, they are useful teaching aids for children, for we live in a world where there are wars, where sin can be found everywhere. Fairytales contain the battle between good and evil which is actually the backdrop to our daily lives. They are also reassuring in giving us ‘happy endings‘. It is perhaps this tendency above all which makes people cynical about them, for they argue that life is not quite so neatly packaged as a fairytale makes out.
The story of God is adamant, however, that there is a happy ending, an outcome where ‘there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ (Rom 21:4) We may have to wait for our happy ending; we may have to wait beyond this lifetime, but the Bible is adamant that that happy ending will come and will include a beautiful bride (the church) and a marriage feast. (Rev 21:2) Not so different to a fairytale after all…