A Caring Advocate – Matilda the Musical JR
Tickets for Matilda the Musical are now on sale! So that you are ready for the show, let me tell you a teeny-weeny bit about it, without spoiling anything for you of course.
Perhaps you already know the story enough to know that Matilda is the best child, with the worst parents. Her parents didn’t want her. She is a pest and they let her know it. Home life is not lovely for Matilda and school is tough too.
School is marred by a maniacal principal called Trunchbull. In fact, the only light shining through the midst of Matilda’s misery is the kind and compassionate school teacher, Miss Honey.
Miss Honey sees the potential in Matilda and loves her just as she is. So, where her parents berate Matilda, Miss Honey blesses Matilda. Her parents despise her, but Miss Honey defends her. Her parents loathe her, but Miss Honey loves her. To Principal Trunchbull, Matilda is a blight and a bother. To Miss Honey she is a blessing and a boon; and when life walks carelessly all over Matilda, Miss Honey walks caringly alongside her. I wouldn’t dare spoil the ending for you, so I won’t tell you that Miss Honey adopts the unloved child as her own daughter.
Miss Honey is a caring advocate for Matilda, and that changes Matilda’s whole life.
At a deep level, this musical is about much more than a cute kid amid cruel adults. At the deepest level, this musical is about how a caring advocate can restore someone who has been oppressed by others’ callousness. Miss Honey redeems and rescues Matilda, and then lovingly adopts her as her own.
To a Christian this sounds remarkably familiar.
Our Christian view of life is that the hardness and hurt that life heaps onto us are not God’s good plan for our lives. God didn’t plan for hurt and unhappiness. Unfortunately, through wrongdoing, we have brought those things on ourselves. The Good News is that God has a redemption plan to fix this. We Christians believe that although we all feel somewhat trapped and oppressed by life, there is a caring advocate who walks alongside us, ready to rescue and redeem us, even from our own wrongdoing. Like Miss Honey in Matilda’s life, we see Jesus as that Caring Advocate in our lives.
The story of Matilda the Musical rings true when we think of how Jesus Christ rescues our hearts and then adopts us as his own children. That is why Christians give Jesus the name, ‘Redeemer’.
How wonderful that the underlying message of our secondary musical connects so seamlessly with our foundational message as a Christian school! So, on behalf of the production team of staff and students; hurry, hurry, hurry and get your tickets!
David Gleeson, Principal