Fairytales

N.B. This sermon was preached at a baby baptism.

Probably most of us have heard the fairy-tale Sleeping Beauty. It’s the story of a baby princess who – on her Christening day – receives good gifts from her family and friends but then is cursed by an evil fairy. The curse says she will one day prick her finger on a sewing spindle and fall asleep for 100 years or until a prince wakes her with a kiss of true love. The king tries to stop this from happening by destroying all spindles in the kingdom. But as a curious teenager the princess manages to find the only surviving spindle in the kingdom, pricks her finger and falls asleep until a handsome prince finds her and wakes her with his kiss.

This fairytale was written hundreds of years ago but we still tell it today. I think its popularity is because it speaks to feelings we all experience. We have hopes for our future and the futures of our loved ones yet at the same time we may fear the dangers that can creep in uninvited, like the evil fairy, and turn our world and plans upside down.

You wish your child joy, love, peace, friendship, a sense of purpose, good health: The gifts of a happy life. Yet every time you turn on the TV or open a newspaper you see potential spindle pricks that are out there. Illness, accidents, social media bullies, drug dealers, terrorists – spindle pricks that could harm the future of your loved ones.

It can feel overwhelming sometimes. We don’t know which – if any – of these spindle pricks may be around the corner. We don’t know what the future holds. So how do we balance our hopes for the future with our knowledge that it may contain spindles and dangers?

We could be overprotective. Shield our child and ourselves from the world. Burn all the spindles, like the king tried to do. But then we create and become naïve, vulnerable individuals who don’t know how to cope in the world.

We could be over-cautious. Constantly focus on the dangers all around. But that could create a fearful child, afraid to take any risks at all, and therefore missing out on the opportunities and experiences that life can offer if you take a chance.

Perhaps the best we can do is teach ourselves and our children about the world in a balanced way that informs about the dangers without focusing on them in an unhealthy way.

We can’t prepare for every possible ‘spindle’ we may face in life but we don’t need to fear what the future holds because God has good intentions and a purpose for all of us. Our future is in His hands.

Whether a baby is planned or whether a baby’s arrival catches the parents by surprise. God is not surprised.

God knows baby Lucas. God foreknew him. Before Lucas was even an idea in his parents mind, God had a plan for Lucas’ future. He planned the gifts that Lucas will have, he knows the family he would be born into. God knew that Lucas and each one of us would be here in this Church today, responding to His call to be part of his family, his heavenly kingdom, through Christ Jesus.

As we heard in the gospel reading, Jesus points out that the kingdom of heaven has small beginnings. Inside this tiny baby – inside all of us - is treasure. God sees within him – and within all of us – something of great value. Like the merchant in Jesus’ parable who sold all he had in order to buy a precious pearl, we have a God who values us and loves us so much that he gave us his Son and, through him, offers us entrance into God’s family and life in all its fullness.

God has called us for a purpose. To be part of the good plan He has for us. Entering into this plan brings glory to God and enables us to live the life we were created to live, be the people we were created to become.

By choosing to baptise Baby Lucas today his family are choosing to offer him the gift of faith and support from the Christian family here at St Paul’s. Even the name chosen by Lucas’ parents is a gift to him, a hope for his future. Lucas means “bringer of light”. Within him lie gifts that will bring beautiful things to his family and make the world a brighter place because he is in it. It already is.

Though there are ‘spindles’ out there and people who wish ill rather than good, we don’t have to be afraid. God is for us. Who can be against us? That’s why we pray for God’s Will to “be done on earth as it is in heaven”. He wants the best for us. His will is for us to be like Jesus. To live and love in the example that he showed us when he was on earth. God’s will is for us to live in close relationship with Him: so close that we can call Him ‘Our Father’.

God doesn’t say we won’t face hardships, distress, or danger. Some things may hurt us, some may set us back, but we don’t have to live in fear of the future. Yes we may face these ‘spindles’ but none of them - ‘neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor things present, nor things to come’ - Nothing can separate us from the love of God, revealed to us in the gift of Christ Jesus.

The good news is that Jesus’s saving grace is not a fairytale: It is a free gift to us all if we will receive Him. Jesus - who overcame the 'spindles' of death and sin on our behalf - promises that all who believe in Him will live with Him in this life and the life to come.