Narnia: Delivering a Grown Up Story to the Child Within
Dan Donaldson
November 27, 2005
In a few days, in fact already, you will be subjected to a massive advertising campaign to urge you to take your children to see a new film, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” The timing was no accident. The story begins in winter, and the approaching of Christmas figures heavily into its story, which in many ways is a Christmas story. It is no surprise that those who are taking the multi-million dollar gamble, those who would profit from it, will make seeing this movie, and buying all of the related theme merchandise and video games that it spawns, a key focus of this and many a Holiday season to come.
The surprise to many here this morning, is why on earth I should be standing in the Pulpit of a spirit-filled and Bible believing Church, urging every man, woman, and child, old and young, to go and see this film. Disney, after all, will not be compensating me for this endorsement.
Some would even point to scripture, and suggest that we should not trouble ourselves with any childish stories, after all,
1 Cor 13:11
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.
AMP
Yet I would suggest some have misunderstood what was really being said here.
The Encarta Dictionary’s first and foremost definition of “Childish” is “Immature, showing a lack of emotional restraint, seriousness, good sense, maturity, or similar …qualities.”
That same Dictionary’s first definition of “childlike” is quite different. “Childlike: having the good qualities of a child, like a child, especially in having a sweet innocent unspoiled quality.”
Some have lost the childlikeness we should embrace, while trying to rid themselves of the childishness we should avoid. Quite literally they are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. C. S. Lewis had a way of helping us break through the foolishness of losing our childlikeness on our way to becoming grown up. He wrote: “When I was ten I read fairy stories in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
Can the words of this inspired author take us to a place of deeper, yet childlike faith in the story behind the story of Christmas, in a land called Narnia?
In the preface to the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, he writes to his Goddaughter Lucy:
C. S. Lewis explains to his Goddaughter, and is doing so to us also, that is intended audience was both children and grown ups:
“To Lucy Barfield,
My dear Lucy,
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it, I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some say you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from the upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall be
Your affectionate Godfather,
C. S. Lewis
So perhaps there is more reason than ever to study some of the works of my favorite Christian author from many years ago. I want to introduce you in a way you will find surprising, to an aspect of some of his abundant writings that are specifically important for Christians to understand and embrace today. For the most part, he has been best known for a good many very scholarly books, as he personally authored over 60 of them. He was so prolific in his writing, that only about two thirds of them were able to be published before he died, and over 20 more after his death.
Though praised for his literary skills, it is the power behind the stories, and the importance of the subject matter itself that have made his simplest stories important, timeless, and able to stand the test of time. It is so interesting to me, being a literary scholar myself, (B.A. in Literary Arts, magna cum laude) that learned scholars have earned doctorates as they poured over every word of his books for decades. And yet the most successful, memorable and powerful works were never meant to be the text books of theologians, literary masters, or history academics at all. They were written for a child to understand them, but for an adult to appreciate them.
The set of books I refer to chronicle from its creation to its last days, the entire world he created first in his own mind, along with its human and animal (some talking animal) inhabitants. He has been sometimes criticized for its being intended for a young audience, yet including rather evil, demonic characters, and even some graphic depictions of bloody battles.
Perhaps even some here have known of other more recent best selling stories now made into films, and since those other stories glorify wizards and witches, and celebrate seeking after their dark powers, you do well to steer clear of them.
So it is not surprising that some people have purposely shied away from exposing themselves and their children to the works of which I speak today, but they do so to their own great loss. For there is a key difference between this book, and the works of the authors I abhor, In bad stories, the villainy and its dark power is glorified, but in the works of the authors I love, villainy is quickly identified, and its power ultimately nullified.
I am encouraging you to allow yourself to become a child again, and to get absorbed in the story, as it starts and stops, jumping back and forth chronologically, to tell the larger story hiding within. In addition to recent movies, several of these books were put together in a single bound collection, and many, but not enough Christians, enjoy reading them to their children to this day. We call this entire collection of works, of which I speak, the Bible, and its renowned author, is the Author of our faith, Jesus.
What, you thought I was talking about someone else? Ah, but that is the point of a well-told parable. It is the telling of one story, by the telling of another. (recap the key points of how the above paragraphs were accurately portraying the Bible)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And this is why the Bible often told one story with another. We see the truth of a story in a different way, when we are given the opportunity to divorce ourselves from what we think we already know. While we become absorbed in a story we do not think pertains to us, we can listen without feeling threatened by it, or by the implications of its truth for us. The truth of it slips past the guard that our flesh has posted at the door of our hearts to guard against anything coming in there and upsetting the apple cart, or to put it another way, upsetting the tables of money changers who have crept into our temples.
King David and the lamb.
2 Sam 12:1-11
“12:1 AND THE Lord sent Nathan to David. He came and said to him, There were two men in a city, one rich and the other poor.
2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds,
3 But the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb which he had bought and brought up, and it grew up with him and his children. It ate of his own morsel, drank from his own cup, lay in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him.
4 Now a traveler came to the rich man, and to avoid taking one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfaring man who had come to him, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for his guest.
5 Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who has done this is a son [worthy] of death.
6 He shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no pity.
7 Then Nathan said to David, You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king of Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.
8 And I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added that much again.
9 Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, doing evil in His sight? You have slain Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife. You have murdered him with the sword of the Ammonites. [Lev 20:10; 24:17.]
10 Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because [you have not only despised My command, but] you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.
AMP
The Vineyard Owner
Mark 11:33-12:1-12
12:1 AND [Jesus] started to speak to them in parables [with comparisons and illustrations]. A man planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower and let it out [for rent] to vinedressers and went into another country.
2 When the season came, he sent a bond servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.
3 But they took him and beat him and sent him away without anything.
4 Again he sent to them another bond servant, and they stoned him and wounded him in the head and treated him shamefully [sending him away with insults].
AMP
5 And he sent another, and that one they killed; then many others — some they beat, and some they put to death.
6 He had still one left [to send], a beloved son; last of all he sent him to them, saying, They will respect my son.
7 But those tenants said to one another, Here is the heir; come on, let us put him to death, and [then] the inheritance will be ours.
8 And they took him and killed him, and threw [his body] outside the vineyard.
9 Now what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others.
10 Have you not even read this [passage of] Scripture: The very Stone which [after putting It to the test] the builders rejected has become the Head of the corner [Cornerstone];
11 This is from the Lord and is His doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes? [Ps 118:22,23.]
12 And they were trying to get hold of Him, but they were afraid of the people, for they knew that He spoke this parable with reference to and against them. So they left Him and departed. [Isa 5:1-7.]
AMP
Now everything that I said when introducing the Author God’s works, is also true of the works of CS. Lewis. (recap)
Having perhaps thought yourself wise to avoid this author’s works, supposing them to an old story no longer important, a children’s tail, or even unwholesome or evil simply because of their including unwholesome and evil characters, I hope you now see that the truly good stories always have underlying them the struggle between good and evil. The key difference is that evil and twisted and unwholesome literature disdains the good and portrays bad as good. Quite to the contrary, the focus of a good story, a God story, is to not only show evil for being what it is, and where it leads those who allow themselves to be seduced by it, it is also the story of how we might be redeemed from that end, and the one who redeemed us.
And this redemption story is the story underlying the story of Christmas. And the hidden truth of the Chistmas story, the King coming as a child, permeates yet is hidden within the story of Narnia’s Lion-King Aslan. Aslan coming back into the world he created, by no accident takes place during Christmas. Just prior to His return, the children are given Christmas gifts, that later will be the most precious and important gifts that they ever receive.
The children leave our world so that they can come to know Him in Narnia. Edmond is one of the four children who quite literally stumble into theWorld of Narnia. But Edmund had already hid evil in his heart, so he becomes easily seduced by the White Witch, who in that country embodies and depicts evil, the devil’s handmaiden.
She is also playing the role of those who were left to oversee the vineyard by the Great Emperor across the sea, God himself. In and because of his longer that expected absence, they have taken the vineyard for themselves. To break her spell over Narnia and bring order and allegiance back to Himself, the Emperor (who we never see expect in the likeness of his son) sends his son, Aslan. Surely they will respect him. And indeed, those were called from the foundations of the world do respond properly to Him, while others do not.
The encounter where they meet Aslan, and his affect on them (pages 123, 124)
And true to both stories, my favorite Author God’s story, and C. S. Lewis’ story, rather than repent and obey the enemy mistakes mercy for weakness, and seeks to kill the One who would inherit the Kingdom. This very weakness turns out to be the secret source of His strength, He then turns around and leaves it all in the hands, of these children, who grow up, but never stop being children. They are made Kings and Queens, even the one who had first denied him in his hour of greatest need, was restored and empowered to rule over that Kingdom.
What Aslan did for Edmond, and for all of the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, is what Jesus did for us.
It almost sounds too good to be true. Think of this, using a fairy tale to tell us that it is ok to believe, instead of being the reason we fear to believe.
By appealing to the child in us, he is able to tell His story, even the Christmas story, in a way that sails past our self conscious defenses against believing. Why are those defenses in place? Because as a child we were often taught to believe something by those who we trusted the most, only to find out that it was all a fairy tale, all too good to be true. So this instilled in us the need to look out for ourselves, to protect ourselves from disappointment, ruled by the fear of believing something too good to be true.
We must come with childlike faith, to believe that this story, the story of Christmas, is true indeed. It is the Story of a King, coming as a child, so that we coming to Him as a child, could then be made Kings and Queens. But that is another story.
