Narnia: Of Course He's Not Safe..but He Is Good! Series

“I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” “That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” “Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy. “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe?

Of Course he isn’t safe. But he is good.”[ii]

Aslan, in the Chronicles, is a portrait of Jesus Christ. In fact, CS Lewis said that he did not set out to write an allegory about Jesus – but rather a supposition. He started out by asking, “Suppose Jesus were to come to a world of talking animals, how would He come?” Aslan is intended to be a representation of Christ.

How, then, can Lewis claim that Aslan is not safe? Isn’t Jesus safe? Isn’t He ultimate good?

Jesus is, in fact, good – after all He is God! He is indeed called “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” And He does love children, and welcomed them to his side. He did forgive those who abused Him, and He encouraged His followers to do the same – but if we only see one side of who Jesus us, we are at great risk of misunderstanding who He is, His nature and how we should respond to Him.

In a single chapter of the Bible, Revelation chapter 5, Jesus is described as both the “Lamb of God” and the “Lion of Judah.” He is described as the One who was sacrificed, and the One who has prevailed. The Lamb who was slain, and the Lion who is victorious. His is good – but He’s not safe. And the life of a Christ-follower is not one of safety, riches and comfort. Believing so is bad theology, and it leads to disappointment, discouragement and defeat.

When we tell ourselves that Christians always have it safe and good, and then things go bad, we doubt our faith, we are perplexed by adversity, and we set ourselves up for confused anger. A quick look at the Bible and you will see that the life of a God-follower has NEVER been safe.

Ø Abraham had to leave his home and go to a land he did not know in obedience to God.

Ø Later, he had had to take his only son up a mountain and place him on an alter. That couldn’t have been great for either of them!

Ø Joseph was sold into slavery, falsely accused of rape, and spent years in prison.

Ø King Saul chased David all over the Judean hills – out of nothing more than paranoia and jealousy!

Ø Jeremiah went to jail for telling the people what God told him to say!

Ø Paul was stoned, shipwrecked, beaten, falsely accused and ultimately beheaded for his teaching.

Ø The book of Hebrews tells us that people of faith were “sawn in two, tempted, slain with the sword, destitute, afflicted and tormented.”

The life of a Child of God doesn’t sound too safe does it? Christmas wasn’t safe either. Over the last several weeks I have been reading and re-reading the Christmas accounts from Matthew and Luke. I realized something a couple of weeks ago that I guess I had never really thought about before. You know, I don’t know if there are any other four chapters in the Bible where the word afraid appears more than in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke. It was a time when it seems everyone was afraid or anxious.