The Deeper Magic of Narnia
Good morning, children. Are you ready for a story from Pastor Woody?
Aslan the Lion created the Land of Narnia. It was a land of beauty and peace, but the White Witch was now ruling. How she came to power, we just don’t know. Why Aslan left the land of Narnia, we just don’t know. What we do know is that little Lucy Pevensie discovers the land of Narnia by walking into a wardrobe, a closet. She pushes past the fur coats which become fir trees and she finds herself in a wintry world where she meets Mr. Tumnus, a faun, half-man, half-goat, who tells her about the White Witch who is the Queen of Narnia.
Lucy asks, “The White Witch? Who is she?”
Mr. Tumnus answered, “Why, it is she who has got all Narnia under her thumb. It’s she who makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!”
C. S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, considered a children’s classic. His second book in the series is now a major motion picture, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It concerns the four Pevensie children who discover Narnia.
Narnia is a world inhabited by all manner of strange, talking creatures: wolves, centaurs, Minotaurs, harpies. We find great good and great evil competing for the allegiance of souls.
Edmund Pevensie, the brat, the third of the of the four children, sneaks into Narnia and meets the White Witch, who introduces herself as the Queen of Narnia. It’s cold and he’s only wearing pajamas and a housecoat, so she invites him to sit beside her in her sleigh. She wraps her fur about him and asks if he is hungry. She magically creates his favorite treat, Turkish Delight. He gobbles the whole bowlful.
"She knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, to go on eating it till they killed themselves."
She sends him back to his world with the command that he return with his brother Peter and sisters, Susan and Lucy. What he doesn’t know is the prophecy that when the four humans, the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, sit on the four thrones at Pair Caravel, the Queen will be doomed. The Witch must kill at least one of the children.
He returns home through the wardrobe a changed boy. He’s been infected by lust for magic food. After eating the Turkish Delight, Edmund looked awful. He felt “sick, and sulky, and annoyed” and became “a nastier person by the minute.” The children together enter Narnia, and find a friendly Beaver who hides them from the queen. Edmund ate the Beavers’ meal “but he hadn’t really enjoyed it because he was thinking all the time about Turkish Delight—and there’s nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food.”
In his book, Miracles, Lewis writes, "The slaves of the senses, after the first bait, are starved by their masters." Edmund is an addict. He cannot enjoy wholesome food. In fact, later when he leaves his brother and sisters and runs to the Queen’s castle, she imprisons him and feeds him stale bread. He refuses it even though he is ravenous. He can only think of Turkish Delight.
Lewis expresses the dilemma of the man addicted to sin in the Screwtape Letters. Screwtape says, "An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula."
Edmund’s dilemma is that of every man. Addicted to sins that never satisfy, the wholesome, gratifying pleasures of life lose their charm.
The queen rules Narnia. It is always winter and never Christmas. But Mr. Beaver tells the children that Aslan is on the move. The children have never heard of Aslan.
“Who is Aslan?” asked Susan.
"Aslan?" said Mr. Beaver. "Why, don’t you know? He’s the King. He’s the Lord of the whole wood, but not often here, you understand. Never in my time or my father’s time. But the word has reached us that he has come back. He is in Narnia at this moment. He’ll settle the White Queen all right…."
Then Mr. Beaver recites an old Narnian rhyme:
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
"Is—is he a man?" asked Lucy.
"Aslan a man!" Mr. Beaver said sternly. "Certainly not. 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? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
Aslan is a god-like creature: eternal, powerful, good. Lewis keeps us guessing about Aslan. The mystery gives us pause, makes us wonder, “Is Aslan benevolent?” He isn’t safe…but he is good. He is not a tame lion. He is ferocious. Lewis helps us see Jesus in a different light. He is dangerously good--like the Christ child in the manger who seemed so helpless, yet he horrified Herod the Great. Jesus poses a threat to many people—perhaps even to you.
Aslan shifts our paradigm. He shakes our categories. Here is a Deity who is awesome to behold, deserving of reverential fear. He is a lion to love, yet a lion with razor talons and teeth and a roar that will terrify.
A little girl wrote C. S. Lewis, asking if Aslan is Jesus.
Lewis replied: “As to Aslan’s other name, well I want you to guess. Has there never been anyone in this world who
(1) Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas.
(2) Said he was the son of the Great Emperor.
(3) Gave himself up for someone else’s fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people.
(4) Came to life again?....
Don’t you really know His name in this world.”? (in C.S. Lewis: Letters to Children, 1996).
The battle is brewing. The armies are massing. Good versus evil, with Narnia in the balance. But first, the Witch asks for a conference with Aslan. She walks into the camp.
"You have a traitor there, Aslan," said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund….
"Well," said Aslan. "His offence was not against you."
"Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?" asked the Witch.
"Let us say I have forgotten it," answered Aslan gravely. "Tell us of this Deep Magic."
"Tell you?" said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. "Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill? Tell you what is engraved on the sceptre of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea? You at least know the Magic the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill... And so, that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property."
According to the Deep Magic which is inscribed on the Stone Table, a massive square rock platform, every traitor belongs to the Witch.
The Deep Magic is parallel to the Mosaic Law, inscribed, not on a Stone Table, but on Stone Tablets. According to that Law, every soul that sins shall surely die. Every person born into sin belongs to Satan. You cannot sell your soul to Satan; it already belongs to Him.
Aslan negotiates a deal with the Witch. He will take Edmund’s place. The King of Beasts will die in the place of the traitor. The Witch is gleeful. She had a look of “fierce joy on her face.”
Aslan leaves the camp and surrenders Himself to the Witch and her wicked brood. They bind him and mock him and cut off his mane. Then the Witch pierces his heart and kills him.
Aslan is a substitute. The heart of the Gospel is substitution. Jesus died in our place. Peter, in 1 Peter 3 explains this Great Exchange.
1Pet. 3:18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit."
One man calls this verse “one of the shortest and simplest, and yet one of the richest summaries given in the New Testament of the meaning of the Cross of Jesus.”
We all know why Jesus became a baby. His mission was to die for sins. He came to pay the penalty for man’s sin.
The use of the aorist tense of “die” with the word “once for all” speaks of the uniqueness and nonrepeatable nature of Christ’s death. He only needed to die once. His life was infinite in value and it paid the price for a host of sins.
The High Priest of Israel entered the Holy of Holies once a year to offer sacrifice, but Jesus died for sins once for all.
The verse goes on to say, "the just for the unjust" Jesus was just or righteous. He died for the unjust, the unrighteous. This is the element of substitution. Note the emphasis of the character of the parties involved. It isn’t fair that the just should die in the place of the unjust. It wasn’t fair that Aslan would die in Edmund’s place.
But there was a purpose to this substitutionary, once for all death.
Peter says it happened, "that He might bring us to God.” "Bring" is a technical term for "gaining an audience with the king". Jesus’ death opens the throne room door. He ushers us into the presence of the Great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. His substitutionary death results in reconciliation with God.
The Deep Magic of Narnia demanded that every traitor belongs to the Witch. But there is a Deeper Magic at work in Narnia.
Susan and Lucy went with Aslan that fateful night. At a safe distance, they watched him suffer and die on the Stone Table. Then, when the evil horde left the scene, they walked over to the dead body of Aslan. They mourned. It was time to go. The last battle for Narnia would soon begin. But at that moment, they heard “a great cracking, deafening noise as if a giant had broken a giant’s plate.... The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan.
"Who’s done it?" cried Susan. "What does it mean? Is it more magic?"
"Yes!" said a great voice from behind their backs. "It is more magic." They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.
"Oh, Aslan!" cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much frightened as they were glad....
"But what does it all mean?" asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
"It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."
The Deep Magic is the Moral Law. It expresses the perfect demands of a holy God. C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, "There is nothing indulgent about the law. It is hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing, and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do." The Deep Magic is not the Witch’s magic. It is the Emperor’s code, by which all must abide, and which she is merely using for her own advantage. She thinks that by claiming Edmund as her own, she can kill him and prevent the prophecy from fulfillment.
C. S. Lewis explained the meaning of the Deeper Magic in a letter to a friend, “It [is] the rule of the universe that others can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves…That is why Christ‘s suffering for us is not a mere theological dodge but the supreme case of the law that governs the whole world: and when they mocked him by saying, ‘he saved others, himself he cannot save,’ they were really uttering, little as they know it, the ultimate law of the spiritual world.”
The White Witch did not realize that there was a Deeper Magic. Aslan obeys the Deep Magic of the Stone Table and initiates the Deeper Magic, which we know as the New Covenant. Out of his death comes life for all. He reverses the curse of Adam. The winter of Narnia gives way to springtime forevermore.
Everyone of us is an Edmund, a traitor.
Everyone of us has tasted and yearned and become addicted to Turkish Delight.
Everyone of us belong to the Evil One as lawful prey. Our lives are forfeit to Evil. Our blood is Satan’s property
But we can escape the curse of the Deep Magic if we invoke the Deeper Magic From Before the Dawn of Time. If we believe that the willing victim who knew no treachery was killed in the traitor’s stead, we shall be saved. Believe that Jesus is your substitute and died in your place and you shall be saved.
Earlier in the book, while the children’s were dining in the Beavers’ den and they first heard the name of Aslan, we read these words:
“And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these things everyone felt quite different.... At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.”
The name of Aslan evokes a variety of responses. Edmund the traitor was horrified. Peter and Susan and Lucy responded with wonder.
The name of Jesus evokes a variety of responses.
Herod the Great was horrified and sought to kill the Christ child.
The chief priests and scribes ignored Jesus and the star and the prophecy.
The wise men worshipped him.
How will you respond to Jesus? Will your heart be drawn to Him or repelled by Him? Even a traitor can be redeemed. The Bible says, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God.”
You can be reconciled to God.
You can experience forgiveness of sins.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a story of substitutionary atonement. I invite you to witness the Disney Movie, but, more importantly, I invite you to acknowledge that you are a traitorous sinner and then believe that Jesus died in your place.
The Narnian winter of your heart can give way to springtime if you believe in the Deeper Magic that Christ died for your sins once for all that He might bring you to God.
