Doh!

Have you ever been watching a movie or reading a book and the protagonist makes some silly (or dreadful) decision and you find yourself yelling at the unwitting character (while anyone else in the room gives you a really strange look) not to do it?  As a parent I find myself the most frustrated when my child does not live up to his potential or makes a decision contrary to his best interests.  I catch myself wondering at the choices of friends and family likewise, only to find myself in a certain situation making decisions just as addlebrained.  Why do we do it?  Even the great Apostle Paul seemed to struggle with it, 'For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate,' even Jesus commented upon this perplexing tendency that dreadful night in the garden to His groggy disciples, 'the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.'  Why do we make such stupid decisions?  And not just once, but time and again!  It is the root of all the fairytales: someone does something foolish or silly and suddenly they or another are thrust into some strange quest that must be accomplished to rectify the matter.

As G.K. Chesterton observed in 'Orthodoxy:' "the true citizen of fairyland is obeying something that he does not understand at all. In the fairy tale an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incomprehensible condition. A box is opened, and all evils fly out. A word is forgotten, and cities perish. A lamp is lit, and love flies away. A flower is plucked, and human lives are forfeited. An apple is eaten, and the hope of God is gone."

Why, oh why, do we eat the apple again and again, world without end?  And like the fairytale, our unfortunate decisions come at a cost, one we cannot pay.  But also like the fairytale, there is a hero, one willing to pay the price, to rescue us from our own foolishness.  With that bitter bite, the 'hope of God' fled, but our Hero ventured boldly forth to bring hope back to the world of men.  That's what Easter is all about!  After all, happily ever after isn't just for the fairytales.