(photo courtesy of http://www.rockfordbuzz.com/the-princess-bride-comes-to-nordlof/)A few months ago, I started learning about the authority we have as children of God. One of the aspects of that authority is how fierce it allows us to be in the face of the enemy. Like when Buttercup says to Humperdink, "You are the slimiest weakling ever to crawl the earth!"
She is able to say it because she is secure in the fact that she and Wesley are "joined by the bonds of love" and she finally knows just how powerful that love is:
"You cannot break it, not with a thousand swords!"
and
"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while."
(http://entertainthis.usatoday.com/2014/06/02/cary-elwes-princess-bride-westley-as-you-wish/)So let's look at this story once again. The story of how powerful true love really is (also, a story about pirates, fencing, poison, revenge, etc.)
Buttercup (that's us) and Wesley (that's Jesus) fall in love, like when God, Adam, and Eve were hanging out in the Garden of Eden. But then they are separated, like the fall. Wesley is thought to be dead, lost to her forever, and Buttercup is never the same without him.
Skip ahead a couple of years (or in our story, millennia), and Prince Humperdink (Satan) is preparing to be king. He takes Buttercup and promises to make her a queen. But in reality, he is plotting her death (like how Satan is always deceiving us, luring us away from the path to light).
(https://www.pinterest.com/pin/422282902529852698/)But then, right when all seems lost for Buttercup, Wesley comes back to save the day. She doesn't know him at first, because he is in disguise (just like Jesus was when he came to save us), but eventually she figures it out and they determine to escape the clutches of Prince Humperdink. In the meantime, Buttercup learns that Wesley will never truly be separated from her, even when dead.
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| http://cinemagogue.com/2012/02/16/as-you-wish-the-princess-bride/ |
After a few near-misses in the Fire Swamp (which doesn't really represent anything in my story), they encounter Prince Humperdink yet again. Buttercup, who doesn't really know quite yet who is supposed to be saving whom, gives herself up to Humperdink. Wesley allows himself to be captured (because we all know he could have escaped easily enough) and is taken into the Pit of Despair.
(http://abc7.com/archive/8834266/)Meanwhile, in the castle, Buttercup finally realizes her mistake and asks to be set free to be with Wesley. But Humperdink deceives her in order to keep her with him and away from Wesley. Buttercup remains defiant (and calls him the slimiest weakling ever to crawl the earth) and insists that Wesley will save her whether by invitation or not. This throws Humperdink into a rage, and he goes down into the Pit of Despair and kills Wesley.
On the wedding day between Prince Humperdink and the Princess Bride (which perfectly describes the Church, by the way), Wesley (now alive) is storming the castle (and having fun doing it, in accordance with the not-witch-but-actually-a-wife's instructions). Humperdink and Buttercup are standing before the speech-impaired bishop getting "mawied" but Buttercup is still steadfast in her confidence that "my Wesley will save me." To which Humperdink replies, "Your Wesley is dead. I killed him myself." Then Buttercup, unworried, says, "Then why is there fear behind your eyes?"
(http://www.popsugar.com.au/celebrity/MoviesWhere-Groom-Left-Altar-16079665)Buttercup recognized who it was who would win, and never wavered for a second. Unfortunately, she was deceived again. Humperdink's final lie was that it was too late for her to be united with Wesley, because she was already married to him.
We can easily fall for this deception as well. It comes in the form of, "You've gone too far, God won't take you now" or "You're not good enough yet, try again when you are." And yet the truth is that nothing is strong enough to keep us from God except ourselves. If we don't say, "I do," then what Satan tells us is a lie, and we are not stuck with him. Nothing Satan can do can separate us from our true love.
So in the end, Wesley and Buttercup are reunited (like we will be when Jesus returns). Wesley reminds Buttercup of the truth (like how Jesus is always willing to reveal Satan's lies for what they are), and she realizes that she's not married after all. Wesley defeats Humperdink with merely a few words, because he is that much more powerful than the prince is. Then four white horses, a giant, and a Spaniard show up, with happy endings of their own, and Wesley and his Princess Bride ride off to live happily ever after together.
(http://parade.com/428777/jerylbrunner/the-most-beloved-quotes-from-the-princess-bride-on-its-28th-anniversary/)So just like Buttercup, we can have confidence that our "Wesley" will save us, because we know that we are joined by the bonds of love. Jesus was willing to become and do whatever it took to be with us forever, just like when Wesley went off to sea and became a pirate. He loves us, and proved it by dying for us. And yet he even defeated death, proving that death indeed cannot stop true love. Let our response be like Buttercup's when she said "I will never doubt again." Because it is that response that emboldened her to stand against the slimiest weakling ever to crawl the earth with confidence and ferocity. She knew whose Princess and Bride she truly was. And because Wesley had shown her what a hero truly looked like, she knew that the man about whom she had boasted "He can track a falcon on a cloudy day" was just an empty, cowardly shell of a man trying to look like a hero.
We have a King who is truly in love with us. Let us wait for him with confidence and ferocity in the face of the prince of this world, because we know to whom we belong. Then, when all is said and done, God's true love for us will win, and we will truly, finally, be His Princess Bride!
(http://princessbrideforever.com/)
