Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 7/13/14
This morning we begin
our sermon series focusing on C. S. Lewis’s
“the Chronicles of Narnia” These
are stories that as a child I loved, these books would let my imagination go wild
as new worlds and creatures were introduced to me. It was in seminary that my
eyes were once again opened to these novels.
I was taking a course on C.S. Lewis, and of course we studied many of
his important personal and theological works such Surprised by Joy, A Grief
Observed, The Screwtape Letters,
and of course Mere Christianity.
Surprisingly, in the class we actually spent more time on his fictional
writings, including the Chronicles of
Narnia, and it was there it began to make sense to me; these stories though
fiction, speak to the truth of God and of Christian living. Over the next seven
weeks we will look at each book, and I hope that your eyes are too opened to
the wealth of knowledge these books have to teach us about God.
This morning we begin not with C.S. Lewis’s first and
most popular book, The Lion, the Witch,
and the Wardrobe, but rather with The
Magician’s Nephew, a prequel to all the other stories. This was Lewis’s preferred reading
order, and it makes sense because the
Magician’s Nephew is a story that teaches us about the wonders of creation. Our story starts out with a young boy named
Digory who along with his mother have moved into his Aunt and Uncle’s house
because his mother is deathly sick. As he’s there he notices that his Uncle
acts very odd, and is often locked in his room for hours with only the sound of
random laughter coming from behind the door.
One day, Digory and his friend Polly go on an adventure in the attic
like area above the house, when they find a way to sneak into the Uncle’s room.
The Uncle is delighted to see the kids and tricks Polly into putting on a ring,
and the moment she does, she disappears. The Uncle explains that the rings are
magic, one takes you to away, and one brings you back; but the Uncle was too
cowardly and too proud to ever explore where they went for himself. The only
way Digory could save Polly was if he put on a magic ring himself.
When Digory puts on the
magic ring he finds himself transported to a strange woods, full of many pools
of water. The kids decide to explore one of the pools and find that the pools
are portals to different worlds. The
first world they encounter is a place called Charn, a desolate world, at the
end of its days. There are no living creatures, just a great castle ruins, full
of royal looking stone statues. In the middle of the courtyard there is a bell
with an inscription tempting Digory to ring it. When Digory strikes the bell,
it awakens an evil witch, and from there on in the story chaos ensues. The kids try to escape from the witch using
their rings, but the witch grabs them and it transported with them back to our
world. After the witch goes on a spree
of destruction, Digory, Polly, the Uncle
try to use the rings once again to bring the witch back to the other world.
They are successful in bringing her back to the woods and they go into one of
the pools taking them to another world.
As they come out of the pool they find that they are in
complete darkness, they had entered into a world of nothingness. Suddenly they
heard something, it was a voice singing, and soon other voices were harmonizing
with it. As they listened to the song they noticed that above them the sky was
suddenly dusted with stars. Slowly a
light on the horizon began to show and a sun had been born. As the light grows
they are able to see a strange figure in the distance, it is a lion, and to
their surprise the voice was coming from the lion. The lion would sing and creation seemed to
stem from the song. The song would become deeper and slower and from the song mountains and trees appeared,
and as the song sped up and became lighter, flowers and plants and streams
popped up all around. Finally near the end of the song creatures of a kind, two
of each, started to sprout up from the ground. The lion went to each animal and
they touched nose to nose, and when the song was over the lion cried out, “Narnia, Narnia, Narnia,
awake.” The children had just witnessed something spectacular, they had just
witnessed the creation of Narnia.
A story like this just stirs at our imagination, we start
to picture in our minds the amazing possibilities of mountains and rivers and
animals all sprouting up from the sound of a song. We try to start to even hear
in our minds what the lion’s song might have sounded like. There is such power and wonder behind a story
of creation like this, and it can help us to remember the wonder behind the
actual creation story that we have in Genesis. I think that we have become so
familiar with this story that we fail to stop and appreciate the beauty of
creation. How often do we look out at
the mountains or pass over the rivers? How often do we hear the birds singing
and tend to the cows and horses in the fields?
How often do we watch the sunrise or the stars shine at night? We interact with nature, with creation, every
day and yet so often we forget to truly appreciate it. We fail to recognize
that everything around us is because of the work of God. The fact we have day
and night is because of God. The reason we have water to drink, or plants to
eat is because of God. The reason that we are even here in the first place is
because of God.
It is easy to forget about the amazing nature of creation
because it is all we have ever known.
All we have ever needed, all we could ever imagine has already been
created. We as humans now have simply
been finding ways in which creation can be used. It is pretty impressive the ways in which we
as humans have used creation as well.
From a dark ashy material we call coal, we have extracted light and
energy. From trees and from minerals found in the ground we have created not
only dwelling places for ourselves, but entire cities for business and
entertainment as well. From silicon we have made machines that can store,
process and transmit information all around the world. It truly is remarkable what we have been able
to do with the fruits of creation.
The wonders of industry and technology can however make
us believe that we are greater than we are. We can start to become like Uncle
Andrew from our story, who views himself as an amazing and noble scientist. He
marvels at all that he has been able to create, he puts himself so much on a
pedestal that he views himself more important than other creature. He sends
poor like guinea pigs into the unknown worlds because they are not as important
as he is. He even sends Polly and Digory into the worlds, because he is greater
and nobler than they are. Uncle Andrew is a great creator, and yet our story
teaches him and teaches us that we have really created nothing.
Because imagine yourself like Digory, Dolly and Uncle
Andrew in a world that is simply nothing. No light no trees, no mountains, no
water, no animals. Imagine the vast nothingness, the hopelessness of that
world, and then imagine seeing everything spring into creation through the
voice of a lion. When you go from absolute nothingness to creation right in
front of your eyes, you begin to realize how small we really are. All of those
amazing “creations” that we as humans have made, and only an adaptation of what
has already been created, but God creates out of nothing. Genesis starts out by
saying, “In the beginning when God created the
heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless
void and darkness covered the face of the deep.” Darkness, nothingness, this is what God had
to work with but just like the lion who sang and creation sprung from
nothing, God spoke and creation began. God
said let there be light and there was light. God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the
waters from the waters.” The waters separated and sky and oceans were
formed. God spoke and vegetation grew all over the earth, God spoke and all
living creatures inhabited the land. God spoke and male and female were
created, created in the image of God. We
can lose the wonder of this story when it becomes too familiar, and we need to
be reminded of the amazing fact that out of nothing God created everything. We
as humans are not God, what we create is already created, and we ourselves are
just a part of the whole creation story.
And yet psalm 8 reminds us that we are special. “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the
moon and the stars that you have established; what are
human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for
them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given
them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their
feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the
birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of
the seas.” In the grand scheme of things we are reminded that we are
really nothing. When we survey the amazing wonders of creation, “the work of
God’s fingers” as the psalm puts it, we start to understand some true
perspective. We can begin to feel small and insignificant; that we were only a
day was spent on us out of the whole week of creation. We begin to look at our
own abilities and understand that we really have very little power. We cannot
create out of nothing, we are not creators we are the created. In that moment
in which we feel like our lives don’t really matter at all, when we ask God,
“who are human beings that you are mindful of them” we are reminded that
despite our insignificant stature, God has made us just a little lower than
himself, and we have been crowned with glory and honor. We have been given dominion
over the works of God’s hands. We are
nothing, and yet we have been given everything. We have been given honor, and
yet have done nothing to deserve it.
This is the basis for the understanding of our lives as
humans. This is the basis for our interaction with God, that we as humans are
nothing special and yet God treats us as if we are a most precious possession. The Magician’s Nephew allows us to put
is all in perspective. It allows us to imagine ourselves in the most
spectacular occasion. This story helps us to imagine what that first act of
creation could have really felt like. What it could have felt like for there to
truly be nothingness, and suddenly from that nothingness to see life sprout up.
It allows us to imagine hearing the
divine song or divine voice that brought it all into existence, for if you
haven’t figured out the lion, whose name is Aslan, will be the metaphor for
Christ and for the triune God. This book
allows us to put ourselves outside of the creation story and become witnesses,
because as we read Genesis, we are not witnesses of creation, but rather we are
part of it.
This imagination gives us the appreciation for the works
of the hands of God, and gives us perspective as humans. God spoke, and we were
created. We were nothing but a word on
the lips of God, and now we crowned with glory and honor. We must take this perspective to heart. We
have been given dominion of the Earth by God and yet we do not deserve it. We
failed our duties, we put ourselves as greater than God and yet God sent us the
prophets to guide us back. We rejected and killed the prophets, and so God sent
his only son. We killed Jesus Christ and yet his blood was used to wash us
clean, and the power of the Holy Spirit was given to all those who believe. Time
and time again have put ourselves above God, and yet God continues to love and
forgive us. In comparison to God’s almighty power, we are insignificant, and
yet God still chooses us to continue singing that song of creation. It is time as Christians that we humble
ourselves, and in lowering ourselves we may rise up to the glory the Lord has
prescribed for us. We must finally acknowledge that creation is not something
for us to consume, but to take care of. We must realize that dominion does not
mean ownership, we did not create this Earth; God did out of nothing. Therefore
just as God treats we who are nothing with honor and glory, we must too treat
all that has been given to our dominion with that same honor. We must remember
that those things which many seem insignificant to us, like us, were spoken out
of nothing by the one who creates the great symphony of creation. Our job is
simple, we must let that voice continue to sing, and join in harmony with its
sweet, sweet sound.
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