Frozen Choices

Spoiler alert! If you haven't watched the movie Frozen, go buy it and watch it before continuing!

Ever since watching the movie Frozen for the first time (and the 20+ times that have followed), my sister-in-law has been waiting for me to write a sermon about it. 

She knew it wouldn't be hard. From being the first Disney film with a female director, to having a princess NOT rescued by a handsome prince in the end, there is much talk about this movie. And many sermons have already been written on the subject.

Since Sunday was my last sermon at my home church for the imminent future, I decided it was finally time for this message. And to invite my 5-year-old nieces up front to sing "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" and "Let It Go" for everyone's enjoyment. Well, mostly everyone. 

[Giving a 5-year-old a microphone takes a lot of faith. But they did awesome. Even Tysen who refused to sing and had her hands over her ears the whole time.]

The sermon was about choices, decisions, and consequences. Here is a quick summary of the "Frozen parts": 

Elsa's parents, the king and queen, choose to lock Elsa up so she can’t hurt anyone with her powers to produce ice and snow. It’s a choice made with good intentions because they want to protect Elsa while she learns how to control her powers. But it comes with the consequences of isolating Elsa from her family and her community, and teaching her that what makes her unique is not to be celebrated.

Elsa chooses to run away after her parents die and her abilities are exposed to the community. It is again a choice made with good intentions because it lines up with what she was taught, to protect others from herself, but again it results in her isolation and alienation and feeling like she can only be herself when she is a safe distance from others.  

Elsa’s younger sister Anna [which Tessa frequently reminded me from the congregation is pronounced "Aahh-na"] chooses to accept a marriage proposal from a prince she just met. This ends up being a really bad choice. In some fairy tales this works out for the princess, but not so for Anna ["Aahh-na"]. Prince Hans turns out to be a bad guy with bad motives which are revealed after she gets to know him a little better.

Anna ["Aahh-na"] has to choose whether to save herself or save her sister. In the end, she chooses to sacrifice herself in order to save her sister, and in turn she ends up saving the entire kingdom. This act of true love is the very best choice, even though it seems to come with the consequence of losing her own life. But lucky for Anna ["Aahh-na"], her choice to save her sister was the act of true love needed to save her own life. 

You can see how we sometimes have to choose between what is good and what is bad, or what is good and what is good, or what is good and what is best. And that regardless of what we decide, there are always consequences, positive and negative.

Christian tradition tells us that Jesus made the same sacrifice for us that Anna ["Aahh-na"] did for Elsa. [I love that we get to be Elsa in this analogy, the beautiful Queen with special abilities and unique qualities.] And that even though it meant a gruesome death for Jesus, it was still the very best choice.