The Lion's Land (Reflection on The Last Battle)

 sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 8/24/14 

Read Matthew 25:31-46

This week we conclude our sermon series on “The Chronicles of Narnia” by fittingly looking at the last book of the series; The Last Battle.  This book may just be Lewis’s greatest book of the series, it certainly is my favorite. It has received many awards as well including the  Carnegie Medal, an award for the best children’s book of the year.  For as lauded and recognized as this book is for its writing, it is probably also Lewis’s most controversial and most criticized book because of some of the implications found in the book.  As we have seen throughout this sermon series, Lewis has tied his faith and theology into these children stories, and I am certainly not the first to use them to help teach about our faith. While in books like  The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis uses common understanding of theology like Christ’s sacrifice on the cross; here in The Last Battle Lewis ventures into some uncharted, unorthodox  discussions. But if we are being honest, any talk of the end of times is venturing into uncharted waters. For this reason, this morning we will not use this book as necessarily for a description of how things will be, but rather to as a means to actually force us to think about the end of times.

Our story begins some 200 years after Jill and Eustace had rescued Prince Rillian in our story from last week. Since then things in Narnia had been rather peaceful, for that reason no one had seen Aslan since our story from last week. Even then, it was only Jill who saw him.  While Narnia still believed in Aslan, there was a growing sense that these stories about him were more like urban legends. The people desperately wanted an encounter with Aslan for themselves.  In a way, that is what they received. 

            Our story begins looking at the lives of an Ape and a donkey. The Ape was very shrewd and manipulated the donkey to do whatever it is that he pleased.  One day while near a pond, the two found the skin of a lion floating in the water. After retrieving it, the Ape came up with a brilliant and devious idea. He made the skin to fit as a coat over the donkey, and   convinced the donkey to pretend to be Aslan. Because the donkey wasn’t very clever the Ape kept him in a barn and would go in and come out and “speak  on behalf of Aslan.”  When the people began to doubt that Aslan was in there, the donkey would come out at night by the light of a fire so the people and animals could get a glimpse of him. This trick continued to work, until most of the animals and people of Narnia followed what the Ape had to say. When what the Ape said contradicted with what they had learned about Aslan, the Ape used the Narnian’s own phrase, “Aslan is not a tame lion” to trick them.  The people follow this false Aslan so much, that even when the King of Narnia comes to set the record straight, they tie he and his unicorn up, at the instruction of the Ape.

            During this time the King of Narnia prays for help, he shouts for the help of the former daughters of eve and sons of Adam. With this Eustace and Jill are brought back to Narnia and rescue. They return to find that the Ape claiming that Tash the God of the Calormenes and Aslan are one in the same. They are open the doors any person wishing to see what is inside, with the intent of a guard inside killing whoever enters. Unknown to them however, Tash, who is a bird like demon really is inside. One brave boy named Emeth, ventures to go in. He is a soldier of the Calormen and grew up his whole life believing in Tash, but his was not very happy with the unethical ways in which things have been happening lately; that was not the Tash he knew. If Tash was in the barn he wanted to see him, and so he entered, and later  a body falls out of the barn.

As the King and others prepare to enter battle with the Ape, there begins to be three different divides amongst the people. Some of the people and creatures of Narnia have joined the King in the rebellion efforts. Some of the creatures continued to follow the Ape who is now in cahoots with the Telamarines and their army. While many of the dwarves think that the who thing is silly and refuse to take sides saying, “the dwarves are for the dwarves” and instead hinder the side of whoever appears to have the advantage. The Battle rages on, the Narnians have almost lost the battle, the remaining venture into the barn, pulling the leader of the Calormene with them. When the enter the barn they find the demon Tash who grabs the Calormene leader under his arm. To everyone’s amazement Peter, Lucy, Edmund, as well as Digory and Polly from our first story are in the barn with them. Peter demands Tash to leave and he flees out of the barn.

As the children look around to their amazement they aren’t in a barn at all, but in a beautiful field. Aslan appears to them and goes and stands at the door of the barn. Then every creature of Narnia stands in line in front of him. As some come before him there is joy on their faces as the turn to his right and entered. Others however looked in horror before him, and in a moment they lost their ability to speak and think and went away to his left. Just as we learned of at the beginning of our sermon series how Aslan sang and the world was created, how he gave voice to the animals, now at the end of times, some lost this sacred voice. After this was over, unbelievable things began to happen, almost like the opposite of the song we heard in The Magician’s Nephew, and slowly all began to turn black. Aslan commands Peter to close the door, and with it Narnia was no more.

            The children find that they have made it into Alsan’s land, but there are still many shocks in store for them.  First they notice a group of dwarves huddled together. As the children invite them to come with them, the realize the dwarves still think they are in a barn. The children offer them a feast, but it tastes like poison to the dwarves. The realize as much as they offer, the dwarves are for the dwarves, and they will never see the beautiful opportunity right in front of them. As the venture further they find another surprise. Emeth the brave Calormene boy who entered the barn is still there. Aslan explains to him that without knowing it, by following love and mercy throughout his life,  his heart had truly worshipped Aslan the whole time. Finally as the children continue into the never ending land, they get their biggest shock. The begin to see people from their past, Reepicheep the mouse, King Caspian, and Tumnus the faun, but to their surprise they also see their parents. Aslan explains to them that this time they were not wisked away to Narnia, but that the train they were riding with their parents had crashed, they were in paradise for good. While the book ends with joy, one aspect of it breaks the heart of the readers. Susan the older sister, had stopped believing in Narnia, she did not come back to Narnia with them, she was not on the train with the family, and so we are only left to wonder whether or not Susan will ever join them.

            In looking at Lewis’s depiction of the end of Narnia, we can first look at that which is the most Biblically based event in the book.  Narnia is ending, and the animals are coming before Aslan, some are directed into his country, others lose their ability to talk and are directed away.  This event is almost a carbon copy of our scripture for this morning. Our scripture tells about when the Son of Man comes in glory how he will separate the sheep from the goats. Now in our scripture we know that we are not talking about actually sheep and goats, but rather humankind, but how amazing is it to have here in our story Aslan separating between different animals, some which are sure to be sheep and goats. In both our story for today and in our scripture from this morning we find there is a reason for the separation. In our scripture Jesus tells those who depart from him, “I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.” When asked when they failed to do these things Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” Now, this scripture can make us think that we can work our way into heaven, what is often referred to as “works righteousness.” If we follow these commands, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick and the imprisoned, welcoming the stranger and so on then we will guarantee our place in heaven. But our salvation is not based on our works, but is a gift given to us by the grace of God.  We must however respond to the grace offered to us, we must decide to follow Jesus.

            This is what I think our story from Lewis illustrates very well.  As the world is ending the animals have a choice to make, follow Aslan, follow the false God, or do nothing at all. Those who follow Aslan like the sheep in our parable enter into paradise, but those who follow the false God, like the goats depart from the maker. Lewis shows us in this story how the decision is not based upon what we have done, but rather who we have followed. It is not that we saved ourselves, but that we have heard the Lord calling to us and we have followed.

            Some may say however that this this isn’t fair, the animals that followed the false God were punished even though they thought they were following Aslan. Shouldn’t it matter that they thought they we following the right thing? A simple reaction would be to simply say life’s not fair, but this not an appropriate response. Life may not be fair, but God is just. If God is Just then we should take this question seriously. Once again Lewis’s book provides us insight into this question. Near the beginning of the book we noted that many of the animals of Narnia had a growing suspicion of the stories of Aslan.  Many believed that they were great urban legends, others believed they were great stories to teach a lesson. Since Aslan had not appeared for many years, many questioned whether or not Aslan still cares about them, or if he ever existed at all. Aslan became an afterthought, something that they may have hoped for, but that was not important in their day to day living. Do you see where I’m going? Before this Last Battle even took place there were already many who by the way the lived their lives had decided not to follow Aslan. They had no relationship with him, they did not know him, and so when the time came to choose these animals as the knight in Indiana Jones would say, “have chosen poorly.”

            This is why for us salvation is an ongoing journey.  We were saved from the guilt of sin on the cross and yet we must continue to respond to the grace given to us by until our hearts and souls are fully aligned with God, until we have become perfected in love.  It is for this reason we are called to feed the hungry and visit the sick, to shelter the homeless and welcome the stranger. It is not because these works save us, but because if we truly are following Christ, then we will love as Christ loves. Likewise this is why we come to worship every week, it is why we study our Bibles, and have times of prayer and devotion; not because these works save us,  but because this is how we respond to God grace, this is how we find out how to follow where God is leading us, it is how we grow closer to God. 

            Our lives as Christians should be striving each day to follow where God is leading us, and yet too many Christians take a “name it and claim it approach.”   They get baptized and figure that they are good to go. They don’t show up for worship other than maybe Christmas and Easter, they don’t read their Bibles, they don’t spend time in prayer. They believe in Jesus Christ, but allow no room for the Holy Spirit to truly enter into their lives and transform them, and yet the claim to be followers of Jesus.  Will they be part sheep or part of the goats? That is not a question for me to answer, but it is questions like this that our book helps us to raise. Who will be part of the multitude around the throne that we read about in revelation 7? Do we like the dwarves who deny themselves from seeing Alsan’s country all around them become to inward focus and miss the invitation to come in?  Will we like Susan deny what we used to believe and miss our chance at paradise, and can she still possibly make it there? Maybe most controversial, do those who do not know Christ from lack of experience or from being lied to about Christ, like the Emeth still have the chance of salvation? As I said before these are not questions for me to answer, but they are questions for us to raise, to think about, to ponder. It is because we do not have all the answers, it is because we can not save ourselves that we must commit our lives to follow God. I pray that none of us will hear that when Jesus was hungry we did not feed him, or when he was sick that we did not visit. I pray that none of us may be sent away voiceless like the creatures of Narnia. We have more questions than we do answers about the end of times and about salvation. We do not know for sure what waits ahead, but I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning.

           

             

Faith in the Lion (Reflections on "The Silver Chair")

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 8/17/14

 Read Daniel 3:13-27

This week as we start to wind down our sermon series on “The Chronicles of Narnia,” we turn to one of the lesser known books of the series, yet in my opinion one of the better ones. Our book for this morning, The Silver Chair picks up where the Voyage of The Dawn Treader left off. All of the Pevinse children that we have come to know and love throughout the series are all gone; having been told by Aslan that they were now too old to come back to Narnia. Our story for today then centers around their cousin Eustace, yes the same annoying Eustace from last week, the same Eustace who was turned into a dragon and back into a human.  Eustace has changed however from this experience. People at home have noticed a difference in him, even a girl at school name Jill has noticed a difference. One day at school while Eustace and Jill are trying to escape from some bullies, they find themselves opening a portal back into Narnia. This time however they were in a land they were not supposed to be in, nor were they supposed to be able to leave, they were in Aslan’s land. They found themselves on top of a huge cliff so high that it was even above the clouds. As Jill is playing dangerously close to the edge and as he moves to save her, he himself falls off of this cliff.  Just as all seems lost a gust of wind seems to carry Eustace away out of sight. It was Aslan, blowing him to safety and blowing him to Narnia. Aslan tells Jill that he will blow her to Narnia as well, but gives her some instructions to follow once she gets there. He even has her repeat them over and over so she won’t forget.

         When she arrives in Narnia she quickly finds Eustace and tells him the first instruction, “immediately talk to the first person Eustace recognizes.”  As the approach the Castle in Narnia, the see an elderly king embarking boarding a ship, obviously about to embark on a journey; the kids stop to watch. After the king leaves, the children find out that the elderly king they saw was none other than King Caspian embarking for the Aslan’s land, the place he had been to the edge of, but was convinced to leave. The children had already failed their first instructions.

Their next instructions was to find the Prince Rilian, which they learned was the son of Caspian.  While Rilian was a baby his mother went out north and there she was bitten and killed by a large green snake. Later in his youth Rilian went out in search of this snake to avenge his mother, and he never returned. Many parties were sent out all never returning and so the search was finally called off by Caspian.

               The kids venture off in search of Rilian themselves and along their journies they meet a strange creature named Puddleglum. Puddleglum is the ultimate Debbie downer. If it rains he assumes it is going to flood. If you tell him good morning, he will tell you the reasons why it probably won’t be. When the children tell him that they are going north to the land of the giants, he tells them all the ways they will probably die on their journey, and yet he accompanies them anyways. As the journey the miss another one of the signs because Jill forgot it, and the find themselves as guests at the house of the giants. Only later do they realize that they are not being prepared as guests for dinner, but that they were for dinner.

             The group escapes and find themselves buried underground,  which was in fact where they were supposed to be the whole time. As the venture they get to a place that is so dark that they cannot see, until a dim light appears and strange underworld people take the group to an underworld city.  When they arrive the meet a young prince of the area, who seems to be just a little zany.  He tells them about the queen who is off at the moment, but invites his guests to stay. Later that evening he tells them that a curse has been put on him that turns him into a green serpent unless he is bound to a silver chair until the curse passes. He asks his friends to stay with him during the cursed time, but tells them not to unbind him no matter what he may say.  Sure enough later that evening the prince began to shake violently, almost as if he was being tormented, and then he shouted something strange. That his mind was free, that he was the prince Rilian and all the other time he is under the spell of the wicked green witch, the same one that killed his mother. The group is shocked, but thought it might be a trick to get free until Rilian said, “In the name of Aslan please let me free.” With the evoking of Aslan’s name the children free Rilian and break the chair, just as the witch enters the room.

            At the moment the witch calmly puts something into the fire to create a pleasant smell and then picks up her harp and begins to pluck pluck pluck.  All of the group’s mind at that moment became a little fuzzy and a little unclear, she was putting them under a trance. They tried to tell her that they were from the world above but through a strange logic she convinced them that that was crazy. In fact she started to convince them that everything that they believed was simply made up, even Aslan. As the children are mostly under the spell and Puddleglum finds himself close to being as well, Puddleglum steps on part of the fire and reawakening himself for just a moment. What he say is a little long, but I want to read it to you because I find it to be so poignant. “One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland.”  At this the others come to their senses, the witch turns into a giant serpent, which Rilian kills, the kids escape the underland, return to Narnia, and Rilian and Caspian are reunited just before the elderly Caspian passes away.

        This story, especially the part that I read from Puddleglum reminds me of a sermon that was preached by the former Dean of Duke Chapel Sam Wells. This sermon was so powerful to me that I still remember the title, “But even if not” and those words still speak to me[1]. As I read the Silver Chair in conjunction with our scripture for today, the same scripture that Dean Wells used, I hope he does not mind if I use a little from his great sermon.  Our scripture for today focuses on Daniel chapter 3, but our story is not about Daniel, even for how great he is, but rather it focuses on his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

             At the time of King Nebuchadnezzar, when the Israelites were still in captivity in Babylon, a decree was made that all the nation should worship the king. Those who refused to worship the king would be thrown into the great fiery furnace. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were faithful to the Lord and so they refused. Our scripture depicts the scene of these three friends being brought before the King as they await their fate in the furnace.  The king gives them one last chance to defend their actions and but the friends answered, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. ¹⁷ If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us.^{[b] 18} But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”

    If our God is able to deliver us then let him, but even if not, we will not worship your golden statue.  Our  scripture for today as well as our story from C.S. Lewis are perfect examples of faith. They are true examples of putting our whole trust into the Lord. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, had the utmost confidence that God was able to rescue them, they had faith that they would be saved, but even if not they still followed and obeyed.  Likewise as the children in our story for this morning were falling under the spell of the green witch; as they were all being convinced that Aslan did not even exist, Puddleglum thwarted the witch through his faith. “I’m on Aslan’s side, even if there isn’t an Aslan to lead it.”  Puddleglum’s act of faith wasn’t that he simply believed in Aslan, it wasn’t even that he believed that Aslan would save him, the true aspect of his faith was that he was willing to trust in Aslan, even if  there was no benefit to him, even  if Aslan didn’t exist at all.

           Hebrews 11 tells us, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. ² This is what the ancients were commended for.”  I think that over time this verse has been taken out of context.  It kind of reminds me of On-Demand TV. Some of you know what I’m talking about. There is now technology that instead of waiting for a show to come on at a certain time or if you miss a show on tv that you wanted to watch, you can now simply watch pull up On-Demand or pull up Netflix and watch any show you want when you want it. Even sporting events can be watched on demand, even on your phone if you are away from the TV. I mention this because far too often we treat this verse from Hebrews much like On Demand television. We read faith is confidence in what we hope for an we imagine Jesus-on demand.  We begin to believe that if we are sick and we only pray hard enough if we only have enough faith then we will get better.  We pray that we get the job we want, that that conflict gets resolved the way we want; sometimes we even pray we win that sweepstakes or lottery that we want.  We somehow have turned having faith in God, into having faith that God will give us what we want; but that is not faith.  Don’t get me wrong, God can heal the sick, God can provide for us in times of need, God can help us in conflict, but there is a difference between can and will. Faith is not about our will, but God’s.  Faith is the hope that God can do whatever we ask, but it is also the assurance that even if not, God is with me.  It is not the assurance that all will be ok, but the Christ will be with us during whatever our hardship may be.  For Christ himself endured his own hardships in his life, and in his prayer in the garden the night before his death we here his own statement of faith, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” Or we could say but even if not, not my will but yours be done. At that moment scripture tells us that, “Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. ⁴⁴ In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.”  The heartache was not removed from Jesus, sweat on his brow became like blood falling down on the ground, but we hear that the angel gave him strength.

        
Many of us face many battles in our lifetime, emotional, financial, physical, spiritual. There are 

struggles with jobs, death, conflict and family. In these times I pray that you may have faith. A faith 

like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who had faith God would rescue them from the fiery furnace, 

but even if not, they would not betray their God. I pray that you may have faith like the lovable 

 pessimist Puddleglum, who would proudly fight for the side of Aslan, even if there was no Aslan to 

fight for.  I pray that you may have the hope in God that anything is possible, but with the assurance 

that even if what we pray for does not happen that God is with you.   May we all live in that faith, in 

that hope and in that assurance, but even if not…..

---

[1] Wells, Sam “But Even if Not” Duke Divinity Baccalaureate Service, Durham, NC  May 12, 2012

The Lion's Claws (Reflections on Voyage of the Dawn Treader)

Sermon as preached at  Lambs and Evington UMC on 8/10/14

Read Malachi 3:1-5

This morning as we continue our sermon series on “The Chronicles of Narnia” we begin talking about what are probably my three favorite books of the series. Today we start with the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Last week we briefly talked about Prince Caspian and his journey towards becoming king of Narnia. One thing that I didn’t mention last week, was that at the end of the book Peter and Susan were told they were too old to ever come back to Narnia.  For that reason the main characters of our story for today are the younger siblings Edmund and Lucy.  The war is still going on in London, so Susan is away in America, Peter is helping in the war efforts, but because of their age Lucy and Edmund have to stay in Cambridge with their Aunt and Uncle, and their cousin Eustace.

             Now Eustace is quite a character, the word that I would probably use to describe him would be brat. Eustace thought he was so much better than his cousins, he thought he was so much smarter than his cousins. Eustace believed that he was a well-defined and sophisticated person, while his cousins were barbarians who foolishly kept talking about this made up place called Narnia. One day Edmund and Lucy were looking at a painting in the house and Lucy noted that the ship in the painting looked a lot like a Narnian ship. Eustace overheard this nonsense and began to make fun of his cousins, when all of the sudden the water in the painting began to move. The ship became bigger and bigger until finally they found themselves swimming in the ocean and being pulled on board the ship. Luckily for them, the captain of this ship was none other than the now King Caspian. Caspian was on a journey to the east, where Narnians had not been for quite some time. There were seven Lords of Narnia who had made a trek east decades before, but they never returned. Caspian was on a mission to find these missing Lords.  It probably also didn’t hurt that it was rumored that Aslan’s country was at the end of the world as you travel east.  With this adventure in mind Caspian and his crew made their journey east ready for whatever they would find.

            Lucy and Edmund were excited to be back in Narnia; they caught up with Caspian and all the other crew laughing and having a good time. Eustace on the other hand hated it aboard the Dawn Treader. He acted as though he were being held hostage against his will by a foreign enemy. He found the talking animals and creatures not to be delightful, but rather he detested these creatures. He often threatened that he would turn them all in to the Brittish Consulate, which of course the people of Narnia had no idea what he was talking about. Eustace was sea-sick most of the time on this trip and he let everyone on board knoe how miserable he was. He spent most of his time writing in his journal almost like an inmate who writes about his captivity.

            While on this journey the crew run into many different dangers and excitement, much of which I will not go into for the sake of time; but I will give just a quick overview. On the first island they arrive at the members of crew are captured and sold into slavery until freed by one of the Lords who was missing. At another island they encounter strange invisible creatures who had become invisible due to the spell of another one of the Lords. On a different island they find the body of one of the Lords in a river that turns whatever touches it into gold; the Lord must have fallen in and turned to gold. In another island they found a darkness that would turn your  fears into a reality. While there the find one of the Lords who had been tortured by his own fears in that cave for years and rescue him. Finally they arrive at another island where they find the three remaining Lords in a perpetual sleep at a dining table that replenishes itself every night. Now that they had found all of the Lords many of the crew members were ready to go home, but Caspian and some others wanted to go find Aslan’s land and so Caspian and some of the others continued on in the journey while the others stayed behind. Finally they found Aslan’s land which they could not see because it was behind a great wall of water. Aslan told them that whoever went in would never come back. The children did not go because they did want to leave their family. Caspian was tempted but had to be convinced to stay behind and rule Narnia; therefore the only one to cross into Aslan’s land was the brave and noble mouse Reepicheep. The story end with the children returning back to their land, now with Edmund and Lucy becoming too old to go back

            However this morning I want to talk about a specific storyline that happens during the adventures of our book.  While the crew of the ship were searching one of the islands that they landed on in search of food and supplies, Eustace decided to go off by himself. On his journey he finds himself in a pit full of gold. He searches through the gold items, keeping some of them, wearing some of them until he finds the body of a dead dragon. He runs into the nearest cave out of fear, and finds himself falling asleep. When he wakes up he hears the breathing of a dragon, he sees it move its body, in fact it was mimicking every move he made. Finally when Eustace looked down, he realized there wasn’t another dragon in the cave, but that he himself had be turned into a dragon.  He returns to the crew who at first try to kill him, but he manages to show them that he is Eustace. Eustace is stuck as this dragon for quite some time until one day Edmund finds Eustace wandering back to camp, back to his normal body. They sit down and Eustace tells them what happened. He said that he had gone away, he was trying to tear away the scales on his body but each tear just revealed a new set of scales; it was useless. But then Aslan came along and uses his sharp claws to tear off the dragon scales. Eustace describes the experience like this, “The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt.” When Aslan was done Eustace as back to the body he was before, but he was certainly a different boy after this experience.

            Eustace’s experience as a dragon is one that all of us as humans have dealt with. No, I don’t mean that all of us have been dragons in our lifetime, but that this experience that Eustace has is a symbolism for sin.  We, like Eustace, are covered in our scales, the scales of sin. We are like a dragon, covered by sin upon sin upon sin, weaving together, overlapping one another, layered to make a great coat of sin. The worst part of it though is that we cannot do anything to change it. If we try to change it ourselves, we may makes some strides but we will end up eventually failing. Just as it was with Eustice when he would tear and tear and only find more scales beneath, we too can try to get rid of sin ourselves but we will only find more below. We can tear and tear but there will become a point in which it just becomes too painful and we stop; and those scales of sin simply grow back. This is the first great lesson about sin that our story for today teaches us; we cannot overcome it by ourselves. We live in a culture where can’t is a dirty word, where asking for help or needing assistance shows weakness, but the simple fact about sin is that we can’t, I’ll repeat can’t, overcome it ourselves. Without help we are destined to lives as a shell of who we really are, we are destined to live as a wild beast.

            As Christians we know however that there is help, there is assistance there is God. Our scripture for today from Malachi 3 predicts of this coming help. “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”  The way is being prepared for the coming Messiah, or in our case the Messiah who has already come. That’s right, just as we talked about a few weeks ago when we discussed “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” Christ came to earth died on the cross and paid for the guilt of our sin. And yet that is not the end of the story. Our sin may have been forgiven, yet we still sin. That is why we worship a risen Lord, that is why we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, because God is still present with us, helping us in our sin.

            But Malachi asks, “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” For some reason there is a notion in this world that being a Christian is easy. There is a belief that repentance is as simple as being cleansed by the waters of baptism and then your good to go. This idea is misguided on so many levels. First off, no one ever said baptism was easy. Baptism is commitment, it first of all is God’s claim on your life, but it also is one’s response to God’s grace.  In baptism one is asked, “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world and repent of your sin? Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” I don’t know about you, but this does not seem like an easy task to me, rejecting all forms of evil and repenting of our sin. In fact this sounds quite difficult. Repentance means turning away from our sins, which are often some of the things that are very near and dear to us.  We see the newest thing in the store that we just have to have, but are called to reject our sin of greed.  We want to keep up with the Jones’s, but have to fight that sin of envy.  We see horrible things in the world and we want to retaliate and lash out, but have to fight that sin of wrath. Even something like enjoying a decadent dinner with our favorite dessert is the sin of gluttony we have to fight against.  Sin is all around and yet our baptism vows call  for us to reject them. Like Eustace who could only tear off parts of his scales, we too weak and too scared to tear off our own sins. We need someone to help us, we need the grace of God, but like the painful tearing of scales at the claws of Aslan, repentance too is not is. Christ has to take those sins, many of which stick close to us, and tear them away. It is not an easy process.

            Unlike our story for today it is also an ongoing procedure. As Christians we live our lives seeking towards a life of Christian perfection, a life of loving life Christ loves. This means doing what Christ would do, but it also means ridding ourselves of our imperfections, those sins that hold us back.  Our scripture for today uses the amazing metaphor of refining gold and silver.  The way in which imperfections were taken out of gold and silver, at least in those times, was to heat the metal until it becomes a molten melted substance, and then the imperfections could be separated. Or the way in which a tool or sword was shaped was to heat it up to such a temperature that it is no longer fully solid and then to hammer away at the metal to bend, shape, or smooth. As humans we are like these metals. We too have to go through the refining process, which have to feel the burn, the bangs, of being ridden of our imperfections and our sins. We like Eustace  have to often endure the tearing away of that which hides our true selves.

            But for as painful, for as morbid even as this may all sound, the good news is what comes out on the other side. Eustace once again became a boy, but a changed boy. One now full of honor and courage, of love and compassion. One who went from loathing Narnia and all of its creatures, to one who as we will find out next week willingly goes back.  When we go through this difficult and usually lifelong process of refinement, of seeking perfection, we may just find that the person that comes out on the other side may be shocking to even ourselves.  After that burning and melting and pouring, we find that we have become a beautiful piece of gold. After that burning and banging we may find that we have been shaped and molded into a tool that splendidly serves our Lord and King. After the ripping and the tearing of our sins we will become an even more beautiful version of ourselves for we will no longer be weighed down by sin, but will be refined back into that perfect image of our creator.