“That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying, ‘As you wish,’ what he meant was, ‘I love you.’”
So goes the narration early in the movie, The Princess Bride. It’s been almost thirty years since The Princess Bride was released. Like the little boy played by Fred Savage, my sons loved the swashbuckling tale of good versus evil, beautiful versus ugly, and honor versus deceit. This mom loved it too. I’ve always been a sucker for happily ever after.
Only recently have I grown up enough to consider the spiritual possibilities in The Princess Bride. While my husband is dear to my heart, he is not the Westley of perfection. No marriage on earth travels the smooth highway of Happily Ever After. We’re on the bumpy road of For Better or For Worse, hopefully with far longer stretches of For Better.
But the nearly-perfect, fictional Westley can’t compare to The Bridegroom—the Prince of Peace. No, the perfect Prince in my life is Jesus, and I am a daughter of The King of Kings, which makes me a princess. I am the Bride of Christ. A princess bride. Someday, my Happily Ever After will be spending eternity in heaven with the Bridegroom.
Westley served the princess with the strongest love humans can possess. He would do anything for her, sacrifice anything for her. (“As you wish.”) Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for me, for us, but the metaphor ends there.
Did Jesus sacrifice Himself because we wished it? We didn’t even understand what He was doing while He walked the earth!
Does Jesus exist for our pleasure? To wait for our commands? Does my King say to me, “As you wish?”
I hope not! If He did, the world would be in more of a mess than it is now! My wish is not His command. Just the opposite. His wish should be my command, yet humans are so disobedient. I’m beyond grateful that He loves me even at my worst.
As in every marriage truly made in heaven, this princess bride loves her Bridegroom. I want to do anything that pleases Him. May my words to Him forever be:
“As You wish.”
