The Lion's Speech (Reflections on Prince Caspian)

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 8/3/14

 

Read Matthew 1:1-17 

As we continue our sermon series looking at the Chronicles of Narnia, I must admit that our book for today Prince Caspian, is one of the least theological of all the books of the series. Still the story is a great action adventure novel.  The book starts with our friends the Pevensie children as they await a train in London. Suddenly as the train approaches they are whisked away and find themselves on a deserted island, back in Narnia of course. They find the ruins of an old castle, which they realize is Cair Paravel, the castle they lived at when they were Kings and Queens.  They realize that this means that yes they are back in Narnia, but that they are hundreds of years in the future from when they were last there. While they are there they find a dwarf being cast into the ocean by a couple of humans. The children rescue the dwarf, and the dwarf begins to tell them the story of why he was captured.

            The dwarf tells the children about a prince of Narnia named Prince Caspian. His father died mysteriously, and his uncle watched over the Kingdom until he Caspian was old enough to take his rightful place on the throne; that is until his uncle has a son of his own. The night that this son is born, the Uncle Miraz tries to kill Prince Caspian, however Caspian had already been warned and so he fled into the woods. While in the woods he finds Mr. Badger and some dwarfs, talking animals, something he had only heard about in stories, but something he thought had been eradicated. To his surprise there was in fact a whole army of Narnia beasts in hiding in the forest waiting for a leader to help them take back Narnia. Caspian was that leader.  Caspian and the others prepare for battle, but when he sees the army his Uncle had sent out he realized that he was far outnumbered and that he needed help, and so he blew a magical horn that was supposed to bring help to him. That is why the Pevensie children were drawn back into Narnia. The rest of the book is really just an adventure story of the children rushing back to try and help Prince Caspian, a sword fight between Peter and the Uncle Miraz, in which Peter wins, and of course the victory of the Narnians over the opposing army thanks to the help of Aslan and the trees of the forest.

            As I said earlier, this book is not really the most theological book of the series. As I prepared for this sermon I looked at different sections that would preach. There was a thread in the story in which only Lucy could see Aslan while the others couldn’t, there was the reviving of the trees, each could be their own message for this morning. What struck me from this book however is a single line that Aslan tells Prince Caspian. Caspian had just found out that his ancestors were actually from our world and so Aslan tells him, “You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve, And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”  The words struck me as very wise and powerful words.  That we as humans have enough honor to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and yet enough shame to lower the shoulders of the greatest emperor, and that is something for which we should be content.

            Wow, I mean that is some powerful stuff.  If you don’t believe me, or if the weight of that statement hasn’t had time to sink in yet, then let us look at our scripture for this morning and I think we will start to understand. Our scripture for this morning is the genealogy of Jesus. As I read it this morning you were probably wondering what all these names would have to do with anything, that is if you were able to stay awake during it. Our scripture is not the most exciting scripture in the Bible, there is no burning bush, no transformation of water to wine, no tongues of fire or violent winds, our scripture is just a list of the names of Jesus’s ancestors. When we start to look at some of the names on this list and remember their stories, then this boring list becomes a lot more meaningful.

            As we peruse through this list we find the name of some great leaders of Israel, starting of course with father Abraham with whom God made a covenant to be the God of his descendants. As we continue down the list we find Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel, whose children became the twelve tribes of Israel.  We find King David the King of Israel during its Golden Age. And we find some extraordinary women like Ruth who left her own people to take care of her mother-in-law, and of course we cannot forget Mary the mother of Jesus.  This is an extraordinary list of extraordinary people. This lineage is a lineage that makes one hold their head up high. This is the lineage we would expect from our Messiah, from our savior.

            And yet for as great of a lineage is contained in this genealogy, there is also contained in this list a lineage of shame and dishonor.  For though we lift up Jacob as the father of the tribes of Israel, we must also acknowledge how he stole his father’s inheritance from his brother Esau for a bowl of soup. As we lift up King David we also remember his seduction of Bathsheba how he essentially murdered her husband to cover it up. When we look through our list again we find names like Tamar, a widow denied her right of remarriage who dresses up as a prostitute, seduces her widow’s father in order to become pregnant and gain what is due to her. Or we find Solomon with his 300 wives and many more concubines. This too is the lineage of our Lord and Savior, of our Messiah. What may be one of the most humbling and inspirational aspects of the Incarnation is that  Jesus, just like each and everyone one of us, have an ancestry full of both pride and shame.  As humans we have reasons to hold our heads up high we see groups like UMCOR repairing houses that were destroyed by hurricanes. We hold our heads up high when we see a community coming together to pray for a sick little girl. We hold our heads up high when we take part in providing food or school supplies for members of our community. At the same time we bow our heads in shame when we see what is going on in Israel and Gaza, or in Ukraine, or even here at our own borders. We bow our heads in shame when we reject that who are in need. But whether we bow our heads in shame or lift them in pride, our scripture teaches us to be content, for our savior himself is from this same lineage of pride and shame. “You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve, And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”

The Lion's Perspective (Reflections on The Horse and His Boy)

 Sermon as Preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 7/27/14

Read Isaiah 43:1-7

Today we continue our Chronicles of Narnia Sermon series by looking at the book The Horse and His Boy.  This is one of the later written books of the series, but chronologically this book falls right after The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Last week we mentioned that after the great battle and the defeat of the White Witch, the children ruled Narnia for years and years, until one day finding their way out of the wardrobe.  The Horse and his Boy takes place during that period in which the children reigned as Kings and Queens. Though the Pevinse children are the main characters in our series, in our book for today they play only a minor role.

            The book actually centers around a boy named Shasta. Shasta is a Calormene boy who works like a servant for his “father.”  As a baby Shasta washed up on shore and was raised by a local fisherman. One day a noble Calromene was visiting Shasta’s father, and as they met Shasta overheard them in discussions for selling Shasta to this other man.  Shasta was shocked, and went and waited in the stables for his new master. But then something shocking happened, the visitor’s horse, Bree, started talking to him. We are familiar with talking animals now after hearing about the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, but this was not something that Shasta had ever heard before. Bree, the horse, tells Shasta of how horrible of a person their master is, and together they decide to escape to Narnia.

            The journey however is a long one, and while Bree is a noble war horse, Shasta is an unexperienced rider. Together they ride toward Narnia until they hear the last thing they want to hear, the roar of a lion. Now we have come to associate a lion with Aslan, but we must remember that in this part of the land non-talking animals existed, and were savage and ferocious like the animals we know in our world. Together they darted off at full speed and as they traveled they thought they heard something riding near them just on the other side of the river. Finally the realize indeed it was someone. It was a young girl name Aravis and her talking horse Hwin. Aravis is running away to Narnia as well, but unlike Shasta, Aravis is from nobility. She is running away because she refuses to marry Ahosta, who is the grand vizier to the Tisroc (the King of Calormen). Though Aravis views herself as better than Shasta, she admires the noble war horse Bree, and they decide to travel to Narnia together.

            To get to Narnia however they first had to go through the Tashbaan, the capital of Calormen. As they are traveling through the city the Shasta is separated from the others. It just so happens that the Kings and Queens of Narnia (the Pevenses) are traveling through Tashbaan because Prince Rabadash is trying to court Queen Susan. The children mistake Shasta for Prince Corin, Prince of Archenland, an ally to Narnia. They take Shasta away because they don’t believe him when he says he’s not Corin. While he’s with the children he overhears their plot to fake a party for Rabadash and then sail away for Narnia. Finally the real Corin comes back, and helps Shasta escape.

            Shasta escapes Tashbaan goes to the tombs in the desert,  just as the group had planned for if they were to be separated, but no one was there. As the sun went down, he heard a great horn from the city, the gates were closed, he was all alone in the desert. There he started to here strange sounds, he saw the shadow of a figure that looked like a lion approaching, he thought his life was over. But it was not a lion, it was a small cat, the cat snuggled up with him and kept him company throughout the whole night.

            While all of this was going Aravis had an adventure of her own. After Shasta was taken away, an old friend of Aravis recognized her and called her out in the crowd. To avoid detection, Aravis joined her friend and told her of her plan to escape. Aravis’s friend told her she would help her escape city, and that they would do it through the castle of the Tisroc, now that the gates were closed. As they are making their escape they here footsteps in the castle hallway, and so they run and hide behind a sofa in the nearest room. Unfortunately that is the room that the Tisroc himself, as well as Prince Rabadash, and Ahosta, the man Aravis was supposed to marry, decided to gather in. As the girls hid they heard them discuss plans to invade Archenland and Narnia. After the men leave the room, Aravis finally escapes and together with the horses rejoins Shasta at the tombs.

            Aravis tells Shasta of Rabadash’s plan to invade Archenland and Narnia and so the race off to warn the cities of the attack. The journey is long and grueling and the horses are getting tired until once again they find themselves in the presence of a lion. The lion chases the horses for a long time continually gaining on them, finally catching up to them and catching Aravis’s back with its claws, Shasta stop, runs at the lion and the lion flees. Aravis has a nice slash across her back, which is quite painful, but not life threatening.  As the group ventures forward they find that they are already right at the Edge of Narnia.  Shasta goes and warns the Narnians while Aravis heals with a hermit they met, and together the Narnians arrive in Archenland in time to stop the attack.  The most striking aspect of this story is that at the end Aslan appears to Shasta and tells him, “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”  Likewise Aravis encounters Aslan and his told that he scratched her back so that she would know the pain that she caused the servant who received lashings after Aravis’s escape from home.  The wild lion that they encountered throughout their entire journey, was none other than the great Aslan.

            Probably none of us have been on a journey with talking horses across unfamiliar lands as we escape from being sold into slavery. (If you have, I certainly would like to talk to you later). We have most likely never single handedly stopped an invasion of a foreign nation by warning the armies just in the nick of time. We have not had the same difficulties that Shasta and friends faced on their journeys, but each and every one of us have certainly faced difficulties in our own journeys of life.  Life can present us with some pretty difficult situations. We can lose our job or struggle to find one in the first place. We can become ill or we can lose someone so close to us. We can battle our own vices like addiction, or we can battle financial struggles. Life throws so many different things at us, and each of us has had to face it sometime in our lives. In the midst of all of these heartaches and struggles it is normal to feel alone. It is normal to feel as though the weight of the world is upon your shoulders, to feel as though there is no help to be found. Yet even in our darkest moments, even when we feel as though we have hit rock bottom and that we are all alone, God is with us. In our scripture for this morning God gives us words of encouragement saying, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;  I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;  and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

            Do not be afraid, I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. These words were originally words of comfort for the people of Israel. The Israelites at that time were facing captivity at the hands of Babylon. Some people had fled, others were left behind, while many were taken as prisoners. In the midst of these troubles God tells the people do not be afraid, I have redeemed you. I have redeemed you what does that mean? It could be a reminder for how God has been faithful in the past, rescuing them from Egypt, guiding them through the wilderness. This is certainly true, but I think there is more to it than that. I have redeemed you does not seem to be  something that just happened in the past, but a reminder that they are still redeemed. It is a reminder that God’s presence is there with them. It is a reminder that each of their lives is precious in the Lord’s sight. “I have called you by name” says the Lord. “You are mine.”

            Our story reminds us of the beauty of the grace of God, because our story looks totally different when viewed from the perspective of the lion. In our story the orphaned boy unfortunately washes up by a fisherman who takes him home and treats him like a servant, but the lion sees a baby out on the water who is going to die, and pushes him towards a fisherman who fortunately happens to be there that day and who takes the boy home and rescues him from certain death. Before he even knew it,  this boy was receiving help from Aslan the lion, the God figure of the Chronicles of Narnia. Later on, from the lion’s perspective, there are two sets of riders both fleeing by themselves who would be great companions for each other and so he steers them together.  The lion saw poor, scared Shasta lay at the tomb and  in the form of a cat kept Shasta company, and it was the lion who without Shasta knowing it kept the jackals away that night. Finally, the lion saw the invaders gaining ground, and so he scared the horses into outrunning the invaders and arriving in time to warn the Narnians. From the perspective of the lion, everything was done out of a love, and yet until the end all of this was done without Shasta and the others even knowing.

            This story is an example of what we as Methodists call prevenient grace. It is a grace that goes before, a grace that at first we may even be unaware of, but a grace that pushes us back towards God. No one but the lion knew the lion’s intentions, in fact our travelers saw it as a danger, Shasta had never even heard of Aslan, and yet it was a grace leading them together, a grace to comfort them in times of fear, but most important it was a grace that merited a response. That’s the true beauty of prevenient grace, of all ways of experiencing grace really, that it merits a response. This response is often repentance. Just as the scratches on the back of Aravis reminded her of the pain she caused her servant and caused her to change, sometimes grace for us can actually be painful, it can show us our faults and where we need to change. Grace can come in the form of comfort or in the form of hurt that leads to repentance, but however we receive the grace, our response should always be to turn towards God.  When Shasta started this journey he was an awkward, scared little boy, but when the lion seems to be threatening the danger of his friend Shasta responds, he turns and faces the lion head on.

            When we are in our times in struggle and pain, when we are in our times of  despair, may we have the courage to turn and face the lion; to turn and face God. May we have the courage to respond to the grace we have been receiving, whether it is gently nudges or painful shoves. For when we turn and face the lion, when we turn and face God, we will finally realize that we were never alone. When we respond to that grace and turn and face God we can finally understand the love that God has for us. “I have called you by name, you are mine.” When we turn and face God, we may truly believe it when we hear Do not be afraid, I have redeemed you.  Like Shasta who after facing the lion had the courage to ride alone to warn the Narnians, we may have the courage through the grace of God to faithfully serve. That we may recognize that God has called us each by name because God sees the potential we have to do something special; even when we fail to recognize it in ourselves. Our story for today reminds us that we are never alone. It teaches us of that prevenient grace of God, that goes before us, even before we know it. Finally makes us search our souls and answer how we will respond to that grace; will we turn and face God?

The Lion's Sacrifice (Hebrews 9:11-22) Reflections on The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe

 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?”