While in isolation, Netflix’s true crime documentary Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness was watched by 34.3 million people over its first ten days of release in March. It is part true crime, part nature documentary, and part trashy reality show.
The show is about the rise and fall of Joe Exotic who runs an exotic zoo with 187 big cats, multiple gay love partners, and lots of guns. He was accused of abusing and exploiting wild animals and a murder-for-hire plot to kill an animal-rights advocate.
At first, the audience is drawn into sympathy with Joe. Although scorned by his father and surviving a car accident, he pursued what made him happy. That meant owning, breeding, and exploiting tiger cubs and opposing to the death anyone who wanted to take that freedom away from him. He became king of his own little domain, even sitting on a throne on top of a hill.
But then the show turns into a trainwreck of failed businesses, failed partnerships, and the failed murder attempt. His freedoms ended up making his world smaller and smaller—in mental self-obsession and self-delusion and in a physical prison cell. He’s still the king. But of a very tiny room by himself.
We can scorn him from the comfort of our couches, but this is the story of humanity and of each of us. Just like the Tiger King, we need a throne. Maybe it’s not a pet tiger, but it may be a career, trophy family, oversees vacation, or tournament trophy. Those things can consume us just as much as a tiger does. And just like Tiger King, we will eventually find the throne to be a lonely place. There’s only room for one person there.
How do we escape this fate? Jesus breaks the cycle. He is the only human to conquer sin and death, and thus he is the only human to sit on the throne of heaven at God’s right hand. The angel said to his mother Mary, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end” (Luke 1:31-33).
Unlike Joe, we don’t find validation by being the king, but by belonging to The King. Instead of fighting against The King to seize our freedom, Christians live under his wise and loving instructions. Instead of fighting against others to enlarge our freedoms, Christians live in service to others as our King taught us and as he served us himself. There’s a real freedom there that can’t be anticipated before being experienced.
Joe Exotic ended up in a single tiny room, but the end of your story is much more grand. “In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:2-3).
