Wednesday, June 3, 2009

The Gospel According to Pinocchio (Part Two)

If you didn't read Part One, please read yesterday's post first.

Two phenomenal things happen in the story at this point: Geppetto begins to search for Pinocchio. So does our Father. We are lost and running from His love, but He seeks us. Then, in the very bondage of our own making, the Holy Spirit visits us.

Pinocchio was not ready to repent and love when the Blue Fairy found him in Stromboli’s cage, but his pride had been deflated and had gotten him into a mess from which he could not free himself. He tried to lie to the Blue Fairy, but just as the “One that guides into all truth”, she could not be fooled. She set him free but allowed him to keep his own free will.

When the fox and the cat met up with him again, he told them he was “going home to Papa”, but he never made it. They enticed him again, this time with pleasure. Pinocchio and his peers enjoyed all the forbidden things of Pleasure Island and forgot about school entirely. We’ve all been at that point—giving lust free reign with no regard to our nagging conscience or the Law that seems so far away—not to mention our Father and His love for us. But sin “makes a donkey out of us”, just as Pleasure Island did to Pinocchio. It reduces us to a braying fool clutching at the world’s “candy” and “trinkets” while being prepared for the salt mines of eternal bondage.

Though many lose themselves in sin and ultimately end up in the salt mines, or Hell, Pinocchio’s relentless conscience got him out before he was eternally lost. Running for his life, he dove off the cliff to the ocean below. That crisis experience is one we all must face on the way back to our Father. It is the time when we become sick of sin and rush from it for our very lives.

Tomorrow we will conclude with Part Three. Thanks for sticking with me on a little "deeper" topic this week!

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