People of all ages love fairy tales, many of us have been raised on them whether it be Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, or Frozen. Somehow the story of good triumphing over the worst kind of evil speaks to every human heart. The writer Frederick Buechner believes this is also true because the Gospel itself is the greatest fairy tale of all, but of course, he says, “with one crucial difference from all other fairy tales,” the Gospel, “is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.”
I once read another writer who told the Gospel in fairy tale form. I couldn’t find where I first read it, but I remember it well because a good fairy tale never leaves you. I will call the title,
“The Prince and the Peasant Girl.”
“Once upon a time, there lived a noble prince. Not only was he exceedingly rich living in the giant castle on the top of the hill, owned all that he surveyed, but he was also unusually kind. Every Monday of every week he would take some of his servants and go down to the local village with a huge bag of gold and goods to help all of those who were in need. He would bring flour for the baker to make more of his delicious bread, he would bring new linens and rolls of Italian silk for the seamstresses and tailors, and he would even haul a wagon of livestock from his own fields and farm to grace the local butcher.
People loved the generous Prince.
On one cold winter Monday morning, as he was riding into town, he saw a young girl in old tattered clothes slip down a dark alley avoiding his gaze. As he called to her, one of the local merchants told the Prince, “Have nothing to do with that girl! She is both a dirty thief and a defiled lady of the night. Not only is it whispered that she has bedded some of the married men in town, but she is also known to have stolen silver spoons and strings of pearls from their houses as she slips away quietly at night. She is no good my dear Prince, no good at all.”
But instead of staying away, the Prince’s heart was touched by her sad plight. Wrapping his large warm cloak around his shoulders he headed down into the darkness and shadows of the poor parts of the village to find her. After looking around corners and rat-infested alleyways he spotted the girl stooped and shivering behind an old wooden barrel.
“Why are you following me, leave me alone!” Snapped the frightened girl.
“I want to help you.”
“How can you help someone like me? You probably heard the gossip and rumors. No one wants me around. I am no good.”
The Prince came closer to the cowering girl, and noticing her moth-eaten dress and torn scarf, he placed his heavy thick cloak over her shoulders and said, “I want you to come work for me, up in the castle. I need a new maid.”
Stunned at what she heard, the peasant girl gave no reply.
Gently reaching toward her he said, “Come, take my hand, we will get you some hot food, new clothes, and your own room. You will work for me and my father, the King. He is always looking for good help.”
Without answering, the girl with her arms still folded tight followed him to the carriage and rode back to the castle in a state of disbelief. The Prince was true to his word, getting her settled into a small cozy corner room in the basement of the castle, she was outfitted with a crisp clean maid’s uniform, and she was allowed to eat all the extra kitchen food to her heart’s content.
For the first few weeks, the young girl did her work quietly and diligently: dusting, cleaning curtains, brushing couches, and bringing trays of food to the kind prince. “How are you being treated?” He would always ask. “Fine sir, just fine. Far too good and better than I deserve.” And out of a feeling of shame and embarrassment, she would say no more and quickly scamper away to do her duties.
One day as she was bringing some dirty dishes back to the kitchen to be washed she heard two of the cooks talking about her in whispers and hushed tones, “Why would the Prince bring such a brazen whore into his home? Does he not know the rumors? Has he not considered the stories? I will bet she is waiting for some dark moment to steal some of his precious gold. She will rob him blind.”
Dropping the plate of dishes, the girl bolted out the back door and fled down the hill to the village. As the two cooks heard the crash of broken china on the tiled kitchen floor, they said to each other with satisfied smiles, “Well good riddance as she goes back to her life of filth.” They closed the door, and bolted it tight.
Three days later the Prince noticed that the girl was gone. Heading down to the kitchen he asked some of the staff, “Where is the peasant girl? I haven’t seen her for a few days? Is she sick?”
“No my Lord, apparently she wanted to go back to her life of debauchery and sin. You are too good a man to have someone like her working here. Sorry she deceived you my Lord.”
Running to the stable the Prince mounted his favorite white riding horse and charged back to the village to find her. Going from house to house and store to store, he asked the people of the town if they have seen her or know where the girl could be. “Try the broken down inn at the edge of town.” Said a toothless old granny through a half-opened door, “That’s where sailors from out of town are known to spend a copper coin or two on cheap beer and loose women, she might be there.”
Riding up to a dilapidated building with old piano music playing and the smell of stale tobacco and cheap gin hanging in the air, the Prince hitched his horse to a post and entered the front door. Slowly looking around he noticed the girl sitting alone, sobbing silently to herself. When she saw the Prince walking toward her, she wiped flowing tears from her eyes, and sat up stiff in her chair, arms folded tight.
“What do you want?” She coldly muttered.
“I want you to come back with me to the castle.” Said the Prince.
“But the other workers hate me. I will always be what I am, a sinful lost soul. As much as I want to try to start a new life, my past always reminds me of what I am…trash!”
Sitting down next to the broken girl, the Prince grabbed her small hand and said, “I want you to come back with me, not to be my maid, but my wife. I don’t want you to be simply someone who cleans the dust and scrubs my floors, I want you to be my very own.”
With wide-eyed bewilderment, the girl took a deep breath and then said in sobbing exasperation, “But everyone hates me. I will always and forever be seen as a brazen whore.”
“Not to me, I want you for my wife. I want you to live your new life as you now are…AS MY QUEEN!’
Pulling out a large golden crested band, he continued, “Once I put this golden ring upon your finger, no one will ever be permitted to soil your name ever again.”
“Will you marry me?”
When the girl saw the priceless ring that was being offered, she knew she could trust him and she was ready to give her life to the Prince forever.
The End
A priceless ring has been offered to us as well. It was very expensive and we find it in verse 1 Corinthians 6:11, 19-20:
“You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
