Pete's Dragon and Magic of God’s Unexpected Grace

Last weekend, we had a family movie night. We decided, after what seemed like hours of scrolling, to watch Pete’s Dragon.

It tells the story of a boy named Pete. After his parents die in a car crash, he wanders into the forest. There, he is rescued by a dragon. The dragon takes care of him, and Pete names the dragon Elliot.

Pete and Elliot live in the forest together for six years until Pete is found by Natalie, a young girl, and her soon-to-be stepmom, Grace.

He tells them that he has not been alone in the forest but lives with his best friend, Elliot, a dragon.

Natalie and Grace find this difficult to believe, but Grace knows one person who has talked about dragons before: her dad, Meacham. He has been telling stories about a dragon living in the forest for as long as she can remember.

Grace approaches her dad and asks him, What happened that day in the woods? The day you saw the dragon.

He tells her that he was hunting one day and came across a dragon, the same dragon that Pete has been with for 6 years.

At first, he raised his gun to shoot it because he was scared, but a feeling like magic came over him, and he changed his mind. Instead, he put his gun down and just sat across from the dragon. They just looked at one another. Then, the dragon simply turned and disappeared into the forest. Then Meacham said this about the magic,

Meacham: “Then I thought about the magic. It changed the way I see the world. The way I see trees, the way I see sunshine, the way I even see you [Grace]. I would not trade that for anything. So I am not going to try to convince you [about the dragon]. I have quit that. But maybe if you could just be open to looking.”

Grace: “I know those woods. I know those woods like the back of my hand. I couldn’t have missed a dragon.”

Meacham: “Well, you missed Pete.”

Jesus is not some magic wand that we can wave to simply experience God’s love and grace. Prayer is not something we lift up to God to get the answer we want, but this scene from Pete’s Dragon speaks about how Jesus does change us, and sometimes it can feel a bit like magic. Meacham sees the world with new eyes because of this unexplained thing that has happened to him.

The book of Acts tells of the radical conversion story of Saul to Paul. Saul is going from city to city killing Christians, but, on his way to the churches in Damascus, he is met with a blinding light that is Jesus, who tells him to stop killing people (which he should have already known because as a Jewish man, this laid out pretty clearly in the ten commandments).

He was then blind for three days, and when he regained his sight, he was completely changed. For the other Christians who were fearful of Paul, I think this felt a bit like magic.

Or take, for example the story of Peter. He often puts his foot in his mouth and says the wrong thing. All this culminates when he denies knowing Jesus.

After Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus forgave Peter, and it is this offer of forgiveness and grace that transformed Peter and led him to share the Good News at what we now know as Pentecost, where over 3,000 people come to faith in Jesus.

Sometimes, we think, the only way to experience Jesus’ grace is through these big, life-altering moments.

There are moments when God shows up in big ways, like in the story of Paul’s conversation or through Peter's forgiveness. This is also true of our own faith journeys; there are unmistakable experiences of God.

However, there are other ways in which we experience Jesus, in small but no less transformative ways.

Through simple, everyday moments—coffee with someone, conversation over the phone, or someone showing up for you in a meaningful way—we experience God's grace in new ways. Although we may consider these things small, they transform us.

Meacham, Grace, and Pete were changed by their experience and relationship with Elliot the dragon. Because of Elliot, they saw the world differently, one another differently, and the creation of trees and the forest differently.

In a similar way, this is what God has done, is doing, and continues to do. God changes us. God changes how we see everything around us.

This happens in big ways, but, in my experience, God’s grace is most often experienced not from some blinding light but through the seemingly small ways we see God’s love and grace pushing through, and we can miss it if we are not paying attention.

Sometimes, it does feel like magic because you can’t just can’t explain it.

In what ways have you experienced the magic—In what ways have you experienced God’s grace?

And most importantly, how are you experiencing God’s love and grace today?

May we be open to looking for the magic around us—open to seeing and experiencing God’s unending love.