“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived unexpectedly in Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.’ When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born. ‘In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet…’” ~ Matthew 2:1-5
One hundred years pass. One day, a king’s son passes by while hunting and sees towers behind a forest. When he asks about the towers, he is told various tales by his retinue…“While the prince was wondering what to believe, an old peasant took up the tale. ‘Your Highness,’ said he, ‘more than fifty years ago I heard my father say that in this castle lies a princess, the most beautiful that has ever been seen. It is her doom to sleep there for a hundred years, and then to be awakened by a king’s son, for whose coming she waits…’”[1]
Interestingly, the king and queen are not put under the sleeping spell in Perrault’s version. Rather, they kiss their sleeping beloved and leave the castle, whereupon a forest of “brambles and thorns” grows up to protect their lovely daughter.[2]
The protection of “brambles and thorns” is similar to how God placed angels around the Garden of Eden. God casts them out of Eden – not as a punishment, but to make sure they do not take from the tree of life, and thus live forever (Gen. 3:22-24). If they lived forever in their sinful state, there would be no way for them to awake from their living-death.
And awakening our hearts has been God’s longing since He created the world. He was not surprised by Adam and Eve’s choice; it did not catch Him unawares. From the first day of creation, God intended to redeem the world through the blood and sacrifice of His Son.
Just as a king’s son must awake our Sleeping Beauty from her sleeping-death, so too the King’s Son was sent to awaken us, His Sleeping Beloved, from our living deaths.
Interestingly, although there are many myths surrounding the truth in our story, it is no secret. Even the peasants know there is a Beauty to be awakened; even the gentiles had heard a Messiah was coming (Acts 17:16-33).
Yet the problem with being asleep is that some people forget there is such a thing as being awake. In both our story and in the Bible, the well-educated refused to believe. The prince’s retinue tells him ghoulish stories of witches and ogres in the castle; the priests tell Herod exactly where Messiah is to be born…And yet none of them make a move to go with the magi.
Not everyone’s heart awakens to the call of Love. Many cannot see the Hope behind the thorns and brambles of life. But if we are brave, we can dare to go forth and discover the Beauty of opening our hearts to God’s call of love…
Sources
[1] Dore, Perrault’s Fairy Tales, p. 10
[2] Dore, Perrault’s Fairy Tales, p. 8-9
