Horton hears the gospel?

A few weeks ago I took my kids to see Horton Hears a Who.  For the last year or so I have been reading the book to my kids.  They like it because it rhymes and has silly words...and I think they find the story interesting.  The film was very good...the best kid's movie we've seen in quite awhile.  My kids snoozed through Ratatouille...really, do 3-5 year olds really care about French chefs, or rats who can cook?  The Veggie Tales "The Pirates who don't do anything" lived up to it's title.  Horribly bad.  Come on...mutant cheese curls?  To quote Southpark..."dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb".  So we were excited to finally see Horton, and it lived up to our expectations.  My kids loved it.

I have to admit there is something about the Horton story that intrigues me as a theology guy.  I'll never forget watching the old video version of Horton...it came on our VHS copy of The Grinch.  I hadn't read the book in awhile, so I had forgotten the story.  As I watched the video with my kids it struck me...we were watching the gospel.  Not in an allegorical sense, but in a thematic sense.  There was this world...floating along on a dust speck.  Most of the inhabitants oblivious to the fact there existed anything outside their world...oblivious to the fact they were being watched over by a huge elephant.  But watch over them this elephant did.  He cared for them, had compassion on them, fought for them, and  searched for them.  Too me, the search is the most powerful part of the story.  Vlad Valdikoff dropping the clover into a field full of clovers...and Horton endlessly searching, one by one, until the 3 millionth flower...he finds them.  

One of the images I try to impress upon students who take Theology 101 is the image of God, in the Garden of Eden, calling out for Adam.  Genesis 3:9 "But the Lord God called to the man 'Where are you?'"  The biblical story reveals a God who endlessly and tirelessly searches for his creation...a search ultimately fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.  A God who was willing to be caged, and beaten...all for the sake of his people, for the sake of humanity.  "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."  A world, saved by the smallest and weakest of all...saved by a child. 

I know, I know...why ruin a nice story with all this theologizing.  Fine...experience the story for what it is...a wonderful story, that just so happens to parallel the biblical story in so many ways.  Coincidence?  I didn't think we believed in coincidences....?