“Discovering Nania – 1. Always Winter and Never Christmas”
Gladstone Baptist Church – 29/1/06 pm
On 26th of December, the classic book “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” was released into the cinema’s as a movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, it is worth a look.
He was a quiet professor at Oxford University, in England. During World War II, the British Broadcasting Company asked him to do a series of lectures on the radio about what Christianity was all about. These were a hit and he became the second most famous person in all of England, second only to Winston Churchill. The lectures were later published in a book that is titled, “Mere Christianity.”
Lewis was born in Northern Ireland. His mother died when he was seven years old. His father sent him to boarding school in England the next year. He served in the British Army during World War I, where he was wounded three times in battle. And then at the age of 19, he took the entrance exams for Oxford and there excelled.
Until he was 30 years old, Lewis was an avowed atheist. In a letter written to a friend in October 1916, he said, “I believe in no religion. There is absolutely no proof for any of them, and from a philosophical standpoint Christianity is not even the best. All religions, that is, all mythologies to give them their proper name, are merely man’s own invention.” Interestingly, Lewis did not believe there was a God, but he said that he resented God for not existing.
But a change began to take place in Lewis while working as a professor at Oxford. Lewis became friends with two other professors, who happened to be real Christians. One was Hugh Dyson, the other was J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings. As Lewis got to know these two, he became persuaded that their faith was real. And in the summer of 1929, he became convinced that Jesus really was an historic figure who really did die on the cross as a substitute for the sins of the world. So Lewis bowed his head and invited Christ into his life.
In one of his books, Lewis said he came into Christianity “kicking and screaming.” He said “You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England” (C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, p. 228-229).
C.S. Lewis wrote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe out of his personal experience of what it meant to have someone die in his place. His encounter with Jesus Christ not only changed his life, it changed his eternity. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the story of C.S. Lewis. But more than that, what makes the story so good is the fact that it is your story and my story.
Over the next 4 weeks, I want to dig a little bit into this story to discover the real life story behind the fantasy of the screen. I hope that you will join us as we go on this voyage of discovery that could be as life changing for you as it was for Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy and for C.S. Lewis.
Tonight, I want you to imagine what it would be like to live in the northern hemisphere where it snowed in winter. I want you to imagine that it is the middle of winter and there is snow everywhere.
I have a friend – Leah Grant - who some of you might know who is over in England and sent an email to me not so long ago explaining what living in this environment was like … She writes … “I would like to begin by sharing with you a cold winter’s morning expedition I had recently.
• first, get ready for work - put on huge knee length padded coat with fur lined hood, and gloves,
• pick up work bag and rubbish bag and head for the car.
• get outside, try to open wheelie bin but can’t, because it is frozen shut.
• take off gloves, find keys, get back inside, deposit rubbish inside
• put on gloves, pick up work bag, head for car
• try to unlock car, but lock is frozen
• take off gloves, find lock de-icer hidden in bottom of bag, spend five minutes trying to defrost lock.
• finally unlock car, but all windows are frozen, must find window de-icer.
• fingers are blue, but can’t put on gloves yet, gloves are very clumsy.
• find de-icer and sprayed front, back and side windows.
• fingers are frost bitten, jump in car, attempt to do CPR on fingers and toes.
• find that windows have frosted over again.
• Start motor, put de-misters on and wait for windows to de-frost.
• put gloves back on
• set off to work, and because of delay, have to fight through London traffic for 1.5hrs to get to work.
• Sun finally comes up.
It is a totally different world isn’t it. Deanna and I used to live in Tasmania and we can relate in part to this. Every morning, I would leave for work in the dark. I’d carry a bucket of hot water downstairs and De-ice Deanna’s windscreen so that when she left for work later, it was clear. I wouldn’t get home until after dark and during those long winter months, you stayed in side where it was warm and you looked forward to spring and summer when you could go out and enjoy life. I’m not kidding when I say that in winter, people used to hibernate and be fairly depressed. But they’d come out to play with such optimism and joy in summer.
Now where we lived in Tasmania it didn’t snow – frosts every morning – yes, but no snow. But just imagine where you lived, there was snow and it was the depths of winter. Oh how you would long for summer.
C.S. Lewis, introduces through his book a place called Narnia which was in the middle of a very long winter. It was a perpetual winter with no spring, summer or autumn. We are told that in Narnia, it has been winter for 100 years and– there is little hope that anything will change soon. The ground is white with snow and the air cold to breath because of a curse placed on it by the White Witch. And to make matters worse, in this winter, there is never any Christmas. Remember that this book was written in the Northern hemisphere and one of the saving graces of winters in the Northern Hemisphere is that with the cold comes Christmas. But in Narnia, there is no such joy – talk about depressing.
Narnia once was a lush and beautiful, with parties and celebrations. But not now. Evil has taken control of the country through the person of the White Witch and she reigns with force and through fear. Anyone who would oppose her is destroyed. Narnia is not how it was meant to be.
Narnia isn’t that far off the world that C.S. Lewis knew … He lived in England during WW2 with its reign of terror – secret police who would whisk away suspected traitors – never to be seen again. Fear and intimidation were common – leading people to a hopelessness and darkness which must have seemed like a bleak winter season. Europe was not how it was meant to be during WW2.
Narnia isn’t really that far off our world either … a world where people live without hope in the coldness of despair and solitude. Many people don’t have anything to look forward to in their day to day lives – they are caught in an endless cycle of winter. Some people in our world are suffering under injustice and oppression. Many people exist with the scars or current ache of physical pain. Others have emotional scars or pain to deal with – fear, loneliness, depression, guilt. Terrorism, poverty, displaced people, starvation violence, corruption, greed - Our world is not how it is meant to be.
And really this shouldn’t surprise us, because the White Which is modeled after a character that is very real and very active in our world. A character that holds our own world under a curse and seeks to destroy all that would stand it his way.
What comes to mind when I mention Satan or the devil? A funny little red guy with a pointy tail and pitch fork – a bit mischievous, but really quite harmless? Is that what you think of? That is not an accurate picture of him. The bible says this about him … “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” 1 Pet 5:8. He’s called a dragon, an a serpent (Rev 12:9) and he currently has our world under a curse. To understand this a bit more, it is worth having a look at Jadis, the white witch because there are many parallels we can draw between her and Satan …
1) Jadis & Satan both are driven by SELF AMBITION. Although we don’t hear about it in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" we do find out where Jadis came from in the first book of the series “The Magician’s Nephew.” In chapter 5 we read that Jadis’ sister was queen for a glorious city Charn, but Jadis wanted the throne for herself. When she couldn’t get it, Jadis waged a war against her sister and ultimately through magic destroyed her and the whole of the city so that she could take control – she destroyed both those for and against her, both the innocent and the guilty. She showed no remorse or guilt for her actions for as she testified “Don’t you understand? I was the Queen. They were all my people. What else were they there for but to do my will?” (Magician’s Nephew, p.61). Jadis doesn’t care about anyone else but herself. To Jadis, everyone else are pawns for her to use for her purposes. Jadis eventually abandoned the ruined world of Charn and managed to escape to Narnia where she lay in hiding for a 1000 years until she took control of Narnia, banishing the perfect life as they knew it and subjecting it to the curse of winter for 100 years.
Satan like Jadis is driven by self ambition. He was a created being, perhaps the most wise and beautiful of all the angels. He thought he was greater than he was though and he sought to be GOD. He thought he could do better than God. He thought he deserved God’s throne, but God had other ideas. Satan’s pride led him to set himself up against God. He came down TO EARTH to try to establish his kingdom here. He is now roaming the earth, seeking to exert his power and influence wherever he can. Jadis and Satan are driven by ideas of self grandeur and self ambition. They will stop at nothing to gain power for themselves.
2) Jadis and Satan both DECEIVE, HARDEN HEARTS AND TEMPT us with sweets.
I’m not going to talk about this one much tonight – I want to hold that over to next Sunday night when we talk about the “Lure of Turkish Delight.” But just quickly - Jadis deceived Edmund into thinking that she was his friend and in so doing to betray his brothers and sisters to one who would kill them.
Similarly, Satan wants us to think that he has our best interests at heart, when in fact he is trying to destroy us. That is what happened in the Garden of Eden when Satan said to Adam and Eve – you can eat this fruit, it won’t bring death, it will bring you great knowledge. Adam and Eve were deceived and ate and in so doing gained knowledge about good and evil, but became ENSLAVED TO SATAN AND SIN. What Satan portrayed as good, was in fact poison and led to the whole world being cursed and every human from then on being condemned. That leads me to the next similarity.
3) Jadis & Satan both HOLD A CURSE over their respective worlds. Jadis has cursed Narnia and removed all that represents joy, happiness and celebration. This is a battle between good and evil and Jadis represents all that is evil in the world – suffering, death, injustice, oppression, pain, sadness, dishonesty. She has brought winter, with no hope of Christmas and no hope of any future celebration.
Satan’s plans for this world are similar to that of Jadis. He represents all that is evil in our world and has as his goal to screw up this world as much as he possibly can. Where ever we look in this world we see death and suffering, sadness, sickness, wars, conflict. We see the results of evil everywhere … Here are some news headlines from just the last week in the Courier Mail …
Our world is not as it should be – there are things happening all over the place that just turn our stomach. How could our world be so bad? Its because it is under a curse – a curse of sin.
You see, the moment Adam chose to do his own thing instead of obeying God, God had no choice, but to hand control of this world over to Satan. The effects of his destructive work are even apparent in the turmoil and chaos we see in the physical world we live in … Rom 8:19-22 (Living Bible) says this
For all creation is waiting patiently and hopefully for that future day when God will resurrect his children. For on that day thorns and thistles, sin, death, and decay—the things that overcame the world against its will at God’s command—will all disappear, and the world around us will share in the glorious freedom from sin which God’s children enjoy. For we know that even the things of nature, like animals and plants, suffer in sickness and death as they await this great event.
Satan holds a curse over our world. He has turned this world from a paradise into a stinking writhing mess in which everyone is looking out for themselves. It is far from perfect – a far cry from the Garden of Eden that God created. You see, just like Jadis, Satan wants to stamp his mark on things. God created this world perfect – that was his mark. Satan’s goal is to ruin this world and ruin as many people as he can – the mark of destruction. Why? Because that is what hurts God. God wants to enjoy a perfect relationship with every person in this world just like it once was in the Garden of Eden. But this is not possible – we are sinful and God is sinless. We can’t approach God let along have a RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM. Satan has succeeded in cutting us off from a relationship with God – we are all under the curse of Sin. So God invented Christmas to solve all our problems … That brings me to another similarity …
4) Jadis and Satan both SEEK TO DESTROY CHRISTMAS.
Christmas is extremely symbolic in both the story of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and the story of Jesus, because not only is Christmas a time of celebration, happiness and joy, but it marks the breaking of the curse. Christmas is the birthday of Jesus Christ. Jesus was God’s son who came to earth as a man to break the curse of sin and death.
“Everyone has sinned and are far away from God’s saving presence” says Rom 3:23 (GNB). We’ve already said this, because of our selfishness, our lying, our greed – their our sins - we can’t have a relationship with God. We all have sinned and there is a penalty for our sins. Edmund was a traitor and the penalty for his sin was death. Jadis knew this … she says “You at least know the Magic which 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” (p.128)
Rom 6:23 says the same thing For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in a Christ Jesus our Lord. Our sin had a penalty – just like Edmund’s – death. But Jesus came to PAY THE PENALTY for the things we have done wrong. He chose to die for you and me, just like Aslan chose to take the punishment for Edmund’s acts of betrayal. Once our debts are paid, we are no longer guilty – we are free to have a relationship with God again.
That is what Christmas is all about – a celebration of God coming to set us free from the curse of Sin. And that is exactly why Jadis and Satan both sought to destroy Christmas. They don’t want us free for to be free means that we are no longer under their rule. So they will do anything within their power to destroy Christmas. For those in Narnia, the curse is winter without the hope or joy that comes from spring or Christmas. They are under a curse, with no hope of any freedom.
Satan tried to stop that first Christmas from happening. He tried to kill Jesus by the fearful and jealous king Herod.
For us today, we celebrate Christmas, but the meaning of it is being replaced. Every year there are some who push for a “Politically Correct” Christmas – one without out any symbols that would remind us of Jesus. This last year, on Dec 4th, there was an article in the Sunday mail about some calling for us to even stop calling it “Christmas” because of the connection to Jesus Christ. They preferred the term “festive” which would be more acceptable. You might laugh, but these changes have already occurred in parts of USA and UK. Where they now call it “Winterval” and where the word Christmas once was used on signs, now we see the words “Festive” or “Winter.”
Despite the curse, Christmas has come and can be celebrated each year because Jesus has thrown us a life ring. We can be set free from the punishment of death if we accept Jesus’ gift of forgiveness. We are going to be talking more about that in the coming weeks also.
5) Jadis & Satan are desperate to escape destruction Jadis calls herself the Queen of Nania. She is not - Narnia is under Aslan’s rule because Aslan created it. But Jadis foolishly believes she can remain in control and therefore be God of Narnia for ever. So long as she can prevent the prophecies from being fulfilled – she thinks she can escape destruction. What prophecy? - that when 2 sons of Adam and 2 daughters sit on the thrones at Cair Paravel, she will die. So Jadis has set out to destroy any humans that enter Narnia and hopes that somehow she can escape her destruction.
Satan’s final destiny is clearly laid out in the Bible. Rev 12:7 speaks about a battle in heaven which Satan will lose and he’ll be banished from heaven for ever. Rev 20:1-3 says that he’ll be chained up and thrown into a bottomless pit for 1000 years. After that time, he’ll be released and be allowed to raise up a mighty army for one final attempt to overthrow God. Satan believes he can win, but the Bible says otherwise. Listen … Rev 20:7-10 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Satan is desperate to escape destruction, but He is not certain that this is possible, so his plan is to create as much damage to God’s creation as possible.
Conclusion
Narnia may be a fantasy land, but it is not that different to our world. Our world is not as it should be and there is a winter all across our land. You and I need someone like Aslan to come and rescue us! To break the curse that holds us. We need a great King to enter our stories – to make right the wrong – to eliminate our sorrows – to conquer our deaths – to fill our emptiness. And the good news is that while CS Lewis wrote this book with children in mind, he also did so to convey to people of all ages a larger message.
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the fifth book of the series, Aslan tells the children that although they must return to their own world, they can find him there also (Hooper p123). Aslan says, "There I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there" (Hooper p123). Some of Lewis’ readers wonder what the significance of this statement is and begin to search for Aslan here on earth. Hila, an eleven year old girl from the United States asked Lewis what Aslan’s name is in this world (Dorsett 31-32). His response was this:
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.
(5.) Is sometimes spoken of as a Lamb....
Don’t you really know His name in this world. Think it over and let me know your answer! (Dorsett 32)
When Lewis’ readers find Aslan in the real world, they will find out that his true name is Jesus Christ. Aslan was the means by which Narnia was rescued from the curse of the White Witch. Jesus is the means by which we can be rescued from the curse of Sin. Tonight if you have not met Jesus, then you are still under Satan’s curse. Over the next 4 weeks, I want to dig a little deeper into the story and the characters to discover how we can bring Summer and Christmas into your life.
