The story of a floating lantern…

Dan Harper October 10, 2025 0 0

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Luke 8:16–18 (NIV)

16 ‘No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, they put it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. 17 For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.18 Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them.’

In the 2010 Disney film Tangled, we hear the song “I See the Light”. It is an emotional peak that points to hope and new love. Whilst many Disney films have narrative arcs that are about salvation from something, the imagery of Rapunzel watching the annual lantern-lighting ceremony from afar, locked in the tower, and eventually realizing the hope of being there, says something more.

In the film, Rapunzel and Flynn have fled the tower, and are at the city for the ceremony. This spectacle, which Rapunzel has spent her life watching from the confinement of the tower, filled her with hope whilst locked away. There is hope for the new life found outside the tower, and as her inevitable romance with Flynn blossoms, there is that hope for what a new future might become.

Can you imagine the lanterns being lit, and floated within a great hall, and then extinguished. That would not have given rays of hope to a girl locked in a tower many miles away. And that’s Jesus’ point in our reading.

God has lit us up with love, grace, and hope. We are people of light. The question is whether we let that light shine, or cover it up with fear, respectability, or doubt.

Prayer:

Dear God, lets us let the lanterns of love, grace and hope lift from us, and shine for the world to see. Amen.