Happy Ending

Just like most dads with little girls, princess movies was a staple. Like many of the those movies it was pretty much expected within the plot there would be some kind of enemy or struggle with the princess overcoming to live happily ever after. We like happy endings.

At the end of The Little Mermaid (this was on a lot when Adah was younger), Ariel has her tail replaced with legs so she can live happily ever after with prince Eric. There is actually a song called “Happy ending” to capture everything works out in the end.

Most want that happy ending. Is this possible?

The Reality

Not everything feels like it is a happy ending. There is injustice in this world. Every day there seems to be bad news that we say, “That is not right!” Things don’t always work out in the end. There is evil and evil seems to get away with it. We constantly have the phrase, “Life is hard” coming out in between breaths.

The Psalmist understood this by writing that evil says, “The Lord does not see” (Psalm 94:7). They just keep going and going. Injustice, hurt, murder, selfishness, and hate ran rampant in this world. We echo the phrase, “How Long Lord” as we face a new day (Psalm 13:1).

We may have been the recipient of evil and things working out in the end seems so far away or impossible that there is no more hope. We are longing for that fairy tale ending but it just doesn’t seem to happen. Those princess movies seem just like the genre of move-fantasy.

Sick people don’t always get better. There are still accidents and disasters where people suffer and die.

We also can be the perpetrators to the hurts in this world. The Bible says we all have sinned (Rom 3:23). We are guilty and most of all have offended God because of our sin. The justice that needs to be dealt falls on us. So, where is the happy ending! Where is our hope? Is it just fantasy or is there the reality of a true happy ending?

The Resurrection

Great news! There is hope in a true happy ending. It is found in the resurrection and that is why it is so important. Jesus has conquered sin and death, which death is the last enemy (1 Cor 15: 26, 54-58).

Rebecca McLaughlin writes, “The message of Easter is not that Jesus died so that we can one day float around on disembodied souls in some ethereal realm. Instead, it’s that the King of all the universe has died for us, and that if we trust him, he’ll one day bring us back to an embodied life—richer and fresher and more beautiful than anything we’ve felt on earth so far. “

Jesus changes everything. The evil and hurt, the sickness and accidents that exist will one day come to an end. The wrong that we have done and been the recipient of will stop. For those in Christ there is this promise that Peter said, ^“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” ( 1 Peter 3:3-5).

This is the true happy ending! Without Christ and the resurrection we would still be stuck in our sins. Without Christ and the resurrection we would be not have this living hope. Without Christ and the resurrection we are the most pitied of all people (1 Cor 15:19). Jesus is able to say that he makes all things new (Revelation 21:5) because of the resurrection.

Some of the last words that Jesus said when he was on the cross were, “It is finished.” In pain as he endured the cross spoke of the finality of his sacrifice. He was giving of himself to pay for the penalties of our sin, where we have wronged God. As Jesus took his last breath, buried in that tomb, it was not the end. Jesus rose from the dead three days later, he is alive- he has the last word. The happy ending is found in him, the man of sorrows, endured the cross, despising the shame is coming again (Isa 53:1; Heb 12:2; Rev 22:20).