Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 7/20/14
Today as we continue
our Chronicles of Narnia sermon series we turn to what is most likely C.S.
Lewis’s most popular book, not just in the series, but probably out of anything
he has written. The Lion, The Witch, and
The Wardrobe is one of the most beloved stories from Lewis, and as we
explore it this morning we will find it probably has one of the most obvious Christian
undertones in any of the books.
The book starts focusing on the lives of the four Pevinse
children: Peter the oldest brother, Susan the oldest sister, Edmund, and Lucy,
the youngest of them all. The children
are in London during the bombings in World War II, the government has set up a
program allowing children to be housed by citizens who live out in the country.
This is the situation the children find themselves in as they are taken away to
the house of a Professor Kirke, who just so happens to be a much older Digory,
the boy who saw the creation of Narnia.
The children are bored one day and decide to play hide and go seek, As
the youngest child Lucy goes to hide she finds a wardrobe in an empty room; the
perfect hiding spot. She enters into the wardrobe, and passes a great many fur
coats when suddenly the coats look more like tree branches and she finds that
she is walking in snow, in fact she is in a whole new world covered in snow. As
she explores she meets a faun, a creature that is half human, half goat. Tumnus
the faun is surprised to see “a daughter of eve” as he puts it and invites her
back to his place. Lucy falls asleep, and when she wakes up, Tumnus is
distraught, he tells her that he has turned her in to the White Witch, and that
they must go now. Lucy leaves and returns through the wardrobe back to the
house. She comes out screaming, I am here don’t worry, but the children have no
idea what she is talking about, because time is strange in Narnia, those she
stayed a day in Narnia, it was like she was never gone in our world.
Lucy tells the others about the wardrobe but nobody
believes her, they check it out for themselves, and strangely find just a
normal wardrobe. One night Lucy decides to go back to Narnia, but this time
Edmund is following her and to his surprise he finds himself too in that
strange land. As Lucy goes to find her friend Tumnus, Edmund meets “the Queen
of Narnia, the white witch. She is intrigued by Edmund, a “son of Adam” and is
even more fascinated by the fact that he has a brother and two sisters. As she
entices him with his favorite snack, Turkish Delight, she tells him to go and bring his siblings
back to her at her castle. Edmund
returns and finds Lucy and the leave the wardrobe. As Lucy tells Peter and
Susan about this journey Edmund lies to his siblings and tells them he was
never there.
Time passes and one day while the house is being toured
by visitors, all four children are forced to hide so they won’t be seen and so
they all cram into that small Wardrobe, except this time all four sibling find
themselves in Narnia. Finally believing Lucy, they follow her to Tumnus the
faun’s house but it has been broken into and he was nowhere to be found. Mr. Beaver sees the kids and takes them back
to his home. There he explains that the white witch had taken Tumnus and like
many others has turned him into stone. The beaver explains that the witch is
scared because there is rumor that Aslan is on the move, and that prophecy
foretold that two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve would come and end long
winter of Narnia. As Beaver is explaining all of this, Edmund sneaks off and goes
to the White witch’s castle.
When Edmund arrives, the witch is furious that he did not
bring his siblings with him, she no longer pretends to be nice to him, and
instead she holds him hostage using him as bait to bring the siblings to her,
and together she goes on a chase after the other siblings. While this is going
on, Lucy, Susan, Peter, and the Beavers make their journey to the Stone Table,
an ancient and almost holy ground where it is said that Aslan has now set up
camp. As
they get closer and closer to the Stone Table, the winter begins to melt
and spring is upon them. This stops the witch from catching them before they
reach Aslan.
As they reach the Stone table, the children meet Aslan,
the lion, and are told of their role in the upcoming battle; they are also told
of Edmund’s betrayal. At that time however, creatures from Aslan’s army were
rescuing Edmund from and bringing him back to the Stone Table. The children
rejoice in seeing their brother’s return, but their celebration was short lived.
The white witch comes and demands the life of Edmund. According the Deep
Magic, the almost law that rules Narnia,
the life of any traitor belongs to Jadis, the white witch. Aslan and Jadis talk
in private and come to some agreement, but nobody knows what it is.
Late that night, Lucy and Susan are awoken by a quiet
noise, it was Aslan walking by himself towards the Stone Table. The girls join
him in his journey, but are told to go back when he got close to the Stone
Table. They disobeyed, and soon they witnessed
the most awful scene, Aslan was willingly giving himself up to the Witch. His
feet were bound, he was shaved of his beautiful hair, and there on the Stone
Table he was killed. Lucy and Susan stay at the Table all night long, weeping
over their beloved leader and friend. When morning arrived the girls were still
at the Altar but the boys and the rest of the Narnians were marching into
battle against the Witch and her army. They fought valiantly, but slowly and
surely the Narnians were losing. Meanwhile,
something amazing happened at the Table. There was a great rumble and the huge
stone Table was broken in half and the body of Aslan was gone. Finally, there
in glory, Aslan, alive and as magnificent looking as ever, appeared to the
girls. Together they journeyed to the witch’s castle, Aslan awoke the Narinans
who had been turned to stone, and the went and joined the battle. With Aslan
reinforcements had arrived, the Army of the Witch was destroyed, and Aslan
himself kills the White witch. The four children reign as kings and queens of
Narnia for years until one day they find themselves back in a familiar part of
Narnia, and end up back in the wardrobe, and finally back in professor Kirke’s
house, children once again as if no time had passed at all.
As I said earlier, this story is probably the most
blatantly Christian stories of any of the Chronicles of Narnia books. I sure
many of you have already made the connect for yourselves. Aslan the great lion
sacrifices himself and rises from the dead, just like Jesus who sacrificed
himself on the cross and rose again. While the message of this story is really
that simple at the same time there is a deeper meaning that we can draw from
our story.
Edmund is a traitor, or if we want to use church language
to describe it, Edmund is a sinner. According to the deep magic of Narnia
traitors or sinners were to be handed over to the Witch, the evil one. Lewis is brilliant with his depiction here,
everything has a purpose. We find that this Deep Magic that we read about in
our story is in fact shockingly similar to the Law we find throughout the Old
Testament. If we want to do a quick crash course refresher on some of the
themes of the Old Testament we must remember that early in Genesis God made a
covenant to the Israelites to be their God and that they would be God’s people.
Later in Exodus we find that this covenant was ratified through the Law that
Moses received on the Mountain from God. From then on, the way in which in
which the people of God lived as God’s people was through following those laws.
Yet, as humans the people continued to
sin, and so the people needed a way to atone, to make up for their mistakes. At
that time the way this was done was through animal sacrifice. Animals would be brought to the Altar, and
the priests would then take the sacrifice behind a curtain, into the inner room
of the Tabernacle in which it was believed where God resided.
This was the structure of law and atonement that the
people lived by, but how could those sacrifices make up for a perpetual state
of sin? What could save the people from the depths of hell, from being handed
over to the evil one? What type of sacrifice could cleanse all humanity of
their sin? The blood of the Messiah, the
pure and innocent son of God.
And just as Aslan
handed himself over to be sacrificed though he himself committed no crime, so
too did Christ sacrifice himself for all humanity. In the story we find the witch rejoicing, she
had just defeated her greatest nemesis, she had fooled the poor sucker into
giving himself up and now nothing was to stop her from ruling Narnia. She could finally launch an attack on the
rest of the creatures without having to fear the wrath of this great lion. The great witch had won, or so she had
thought. In fact however it was the
witch who was fooled. Aslan rose from
the dead, the sacrifice of innocent blood trumped the sacrifice dictated by the
Deep Magic. The Stone Table was shattered, never again will a sacrifice be
necessary. The lion reawoke the witches prized stone creatures which she
collected like trophies, and she was defeated once and for all, the trick was
on the witch.
This story helps me to picture a quite similar scene with
the crucifixion of Christ. As those
nails are pierced into Jesus’s side, as he cries out in his last breath, I can
almost imagine the evil one celebrating, thinking that victory is his, and yet
the trick is on him. He doesn’t understand the true nature of God, that through
love, through the blood of Christ selfless sacrifice, the Law is fulfilled in
Christ. As our scripture says, “How much more, then,
will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that
lead to death,[c] so that we may serve the
living God.” In Christ’s sacrifice, Satan lost everything, and
we gained eternal life.
Through the blood of
Christ there is no need for any more sacrifice. Just as the Stone Table broke
in half, we read in Scripture that with the death of Christ, the curtain of the
temple was torn in two. The place for sacrifice was gone. God was no longer
hidden behind a veil, but now to be experience by the whole world. A new
covenant is formed in which the sacrifice necessary for atonement has already
been offered up on our behalf. As our
scripture says, “ For this
reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are
called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died
as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. Through Christ’s blood we have a new covenant,
it is why during communion were are told, “this is my blood of the new covenant
poured out for you and for many in the forgiveness of sins.
Through a selfless sacrifice something amazing happened,
the forces of wickedness were conquered. Like the love that Aslan showed by
sacrificing himself for Edmund, Our Lord has shown us the greatest love by his
sacrifice for us. And yet the sacrifice is not something to mourn, for in it
sin and death were conquered. Like Aslan Christ rose from the dead, his power
cannot be contained. The devil like the Witch has been defeated. This story reminds us of the triumph that was
obtained through sacrifice. It reminds us that we like Edmund have been save
from a punishment fitting for our crime. It reminds us that a new covenant has
been formed, and it reminds us that like Aslan, the Lord lives and reigns
forever. This may be just a children’s story and yet it reminds us of the
reality of the greatest story we’ve ever heard. That the innocent Lord was
willing to die for us, As Charles Wesley says in his great hymn, “Amazing love how can it be, that thou my Lord
would die for me?”
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