Transcript
Do you remember the gripping scene in the animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast? When the Beast was about to confess his love to Belle? Cogsworth looks on with euphoric anticipation, for if Belle pledged her love to the beast, presto. The spell that hung over the castle like a dark, dank cloud of doom would finally be broken. As she clasped hands with the Beast, Belle asked permission to gaze into the magical mirror in order to see her father, viewing her father in obvious distress. She dropped the mirror and gasped at his plight. I’ve got to go to him, she sobbed. Well, go to him, then the Beast responded. Those four words spoken, spoke volumes. Cogsworth later walked into the room with an air of triumphant expectancy as he looked at the Beast. I must say that things are going swimmingly. All hope vanished into thin air. However, when the beast uttered the most significant line in the film. I let her go. He confessed to his enchanted little clock. As the reality of those words sunk in, Cogsworth shook himself and asked, you did what? Can you imagine the impact of the beasts admission to let her go was to plunge his Kingdom into another season of cursed existence. To let her go meant that all hope was lost of ever becoming normally human again. To let her go meant that he forfeited his last best chance of ever being loved. But he let her go. Why? I had to, he said. I love her. The beast understood that the lover does not hold the object of his love hostage to his possessive grasp. Perhaps a similar scene played out itself in heaven when God let go of the beautiful Angel Lucifer, who rebelled against him, determined to go his own way. You did what? Michael or Gabriel or some other Angel might have asked. Realizing that this action would bring untold misery and suffering upon God’s creation. And what about you and me, though God could force us to love Him, He lets us go. I love them too much, he says. God loves us and allows us to go our own way, knowing full well that misery and suffering could be the result. And like beauty, however, we have the option to come back to change misery and suffering into joy and celebration. Luke 15:10. Whenever one person comes back to our loving Heavenly Father, the angels rejoice. This is Captain Ken Chapman.
