At the Movies: The Little Mermaid
What would you do for love? Longing desperately to love and be loved can often drive us to do terrible things—like trading your voice for a shot with a handsome prince. Instead, what you it look like if you lived your life as a deeply loved person?
Transcript
The Little Mermaid trailer:
THE LITTLE MERMAID ORIGINS
The Little Mermaid was adapted from a fairy tale back in the 1830s. While The Little Mermaid is probably the most well-known mermaid movie, there is surprisingly a niche for mermaid movies. Some notable ones are Splash with Tom Hanks and Hong Kong’s Mermaid Got Married with Christie Chung. And as I was watching the most recent Little Mermaid it struck me that mermaid movies all have a similar plot. It starts with a human and a mermaid in their separate worlds. Something happens causing their lives to intersect, and they fall in love with each other. Then there’s a dilemma - how do they make this work out? And the solution is someone has to make a sacrifice. Someone has to sacrifice and give up everything in their world in order to be in the other person’s world.
SACRIFICE IS A MAJOR THEME IN THE LITTLE MERMAID AND THE BIBLE
While watching The Little Mermaid, I noticed 4 major sacrifices. There are some spoilers on this list, but it is a remake and you’ve had 34 years to watch it so, I’m sorry, but not sorry.
Ariel gives up her voice to Ursula so she can be with Eric on land.
Eric is willing to give up his life to save Ariel when she is captured by Ursula.
King Triton saves Ariel by giving himself up to Ursula.
Ariel gives up her mermaid life and family to be with Eric.
And while sacrifice is a theme in The Little Mermaid, it’s definitely a theme in the Bible. The first sacrifice is in Genesis 4 when Cain and Abel offer sacrifices to God. Abraham is instructed to sacrifice his son, Isaac in Genesis 22. And in Exodus 12 God instructs the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb, and put the blood along the house’s doorframe so God would pass over their house and spare their firstborn while the rest of Egypt faced the plague on the firstborn.
A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF SACRIFICE
We’re not going to get deep into any kinds of Old Testament sacrifices, but it’s worth having a basic understanding of what a sacrifice is. I’d define it as this:
Sacrifice is giving up something important to get something else better.
You might sacrifice eating your favorite foods to be healthier. As a parent or older sibling, you sacrifice sleep so you can take care of your children or younger siblings. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel sacrificed her voice so she could experience love and life on land, but her sacrifice fell short. Ariel’s sacrifice led her to be captured by Ursula almost costing her everything. Her life, her lover, and her large merman of a father, King Triton.
IS YOUR SACRIFICE WORTH IT?
With this in mind, it makes me wonder what is worth my sacrifice. What is worth your sacrifice? What are you willing to sacrifice to get something else better? Are the sacrifices you’re making going to get you somewhere better? Will the time, money, relationship, food, rest, or whatever it is that you’re sacrificing get you something or somewhere better? I hope so. I’m always inspired when others sacrifice something to reach their goals. But if we’re going to talk about being inspired by someone’s sacrifice, we must talk about Jesus and his sacrifice. Let’s read Philippians 2 to remind us what Christ had to sacrifice. This is what it says,
Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!”
And the reason why Christ gave up his equality with God is so that we might become right with God based on 2 Corinthians 5:21. Now that’s a big sacrifice, and sacrifices aren’t easy. If a sacrifice is easy, it’s a luxury. Jesus was tempted to go off course. In Matthew 4, Jesus was tempted by the devil. The devil tried convincing Jesus to worship him instead of God, but Jesus didn’t give in. Later in Matthew 16, Jesus tells his disciples that he will suffer and be killed, but Peter tries to steer Jesus away from dying on the cross. This is what happens. Let me read it for us.
21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Peter rebuking Jesus is a bit gutsy. Jesus is his master, but he disapproves of Jesus’ action. I’d imagine Peter’s intentions are good because he cares for Jesus, but he doesn’t fully understand the sacrifice Jesus needs to make and the effect that it has on all of humanity. In Peter’s attempt to intervene, Jesus responds boldly and maybe even shockingly by sayings this,
“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Jesus rebukes Peter back. Jesus calls Peter Satan and an obstacle preventing Jesus from completing his purpose. I don’t think that Peter was demon-possessed, but Satan was trying to ruin God’s plan by having Peter steer Jesus away. But Jesus realized that this was Satan’s way of tempting him from living out his identity and fulfilling his mission. Satan was using Peter to tempt Jesus out of sacrificing himself for humanity, but Jesus stood firm in his mission and did not budge.
WHAT DOES A SACRIFICE REQUIRE?
In studying this passage, I noticed that Jesus was able to stay on course with his sacrifice because of two things. Sacrifice requires knowledge and discipline. First, he knew what was necessary to achieve his goal and second, he was disciplined by not letting anything distract him. Knowing what you need to give up is essential. If your goal is to be healthy, you can’t sacrifice money or sleep and expect that it’ll give you the results you want. You must sacrifice certain foods and time to exercise. You have to know what to sacrifice in order to get what you want and stay disciplined. When Jesus rebuked Peter he told Peter that he “doesn’t have in mind the concerns of God.” Peter only had concerns for himself. If we want to have the right relationship with Jesus, we have to know what we need to sacrifice in order to obtain it.
APPLICATION
I’m sure if Ariel knew what she needed to sacrifice, it would’ve saved her a lot of trouble. What about you? What do you need to sacrifice to grow your relationship with Jesus? Are you sacrificing the right thing to further your relationship with Christ? Or do you need discipline? Do you need to follow through with your sacrifice? As I thought about these questions, Romans 12:1-2 came to mind and this is what it says,
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Sacrifice means we must give up our old ways of thinking and our habits. We give up what we want because it strays us away from what God wants. Sacrifices don’t have a say. They submit to the desire of whoever is offering them. So, offering ourselves as living sacrifices means we submit to God’s desire. The problem with living sacrifices is that they crawl away from the altar, but in having the knowledge and discipline we crawl back to the altar to submit to God’s desire. Knowing God’s desire can help us remove those temptations. Knowing God’s desire can help us develop a goal that keeps us on track. Knowing God’s desire helps us create new habits and rituals to keep us on track. We begin to change our desires to align with God’s desire. Like what Paul says in Romans, we don’t conform to the thinking of the world, but we transform our minds to know God’s will. I think it’s totally worth it to stay firm on our path to know God’s desire, but if we don’t I think this is what happens. After Jesus rebukes Peter, this is what he says to the disciples,
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”
Sacrificing to be in a relationship with Jesus is totally worth it because in the end, we might gain the whole world, but lose our soul. So, consider what is you have to sacrifice and stay the course.